Joe Langen  

(Flying Free)

JOE: Good morning Calliope.
CALLIOPE: Good morning Joe. What's new?
JOE: Our book is ready. Here is the release information:

Just Released

Conversations with Calliope: A Year With My Muse

Joseph G. Langen

Have you ever wondered about the day to day life of a writer? Is it fun, exciting, frustrating? If you are a writer, have you thought about how other writers’ lives compared with yours. Follow a year in a writer’s life through frequent conversations with his muse about writing, marketing, publicity, inspirations and distractions. This book is available free of charge. Read a selection at http://www.slidingotter.com/conversations.html.

Ten Reasons to Read Conversations with Calliope: A Year with My Muse

1. Find out where writers get their ideas.

2. Hear what a writer does all day.

3. Listen to what writers say about being a writer.

4. I want my muse to be more helpful.

5. See how to get unstuck when you write.

6. Learn how to talk with a muse.

7. Explore what else writers need to know besides how to write.

8. Discover what keeps a writer going page after page.

9. Determine who supports a writer’s efforts.

10. Unearth the sources of writers’ inspiration.

Ten Reasons Not to Read Conversations with Calliope: A Year with My Muse

1. Who needs a muse? Writing is the writer’s responsibility.

2. I don’t care how things get written. I just want to enjoy what I read.

3. I can write a book if I want to. Maybe some day I will. I’ll do it my way.

4. There’s nothing magic about writing. It’s just hard work.

5. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to write anything good.

6. Writing’s old fashioned. Everybody watches TV these days.

7. I don’t have time to read, much less write.

8. Most writers are just crusty alcoholics.

9. Writers are like teachers. They can do anything useful so they just talk about it.

10. If it's free it can't be worth anything.

Order a free PDF copy of Conversations with Calliope: A Year with My Muse by Joseph G. Langen from Sliding Otter Publications at http://www.slidingotter.com/order_page.html.

JOE: Happy reading. Talk with you on Monday.

(Now What)

JOE: Good morning Calliope.
CALLIOPE: Good morning Joe. Did you finish your column?
JOE: I did and found it went smoothly. Thanks for listening yesterday.
CALLIOPE: Now what?
JOE: I worked on distribution of our e-book yesterday.
CALLIOPE: How's it coming?
JOE: It's little hard to say. I checked with one person who was able to download it successfully but another could not access it and got a message that it didn't exist.
CALLIOPE: Strange.
JOE: I thought so too. I am able to access it easily in Firefox and Internet Explorer but then I'm not distributing it to myself.
CALLIOPE: What do you plan to do?
JOE: I will ask a few more people to download it and see what their experience is.
CALLIOPE: What do you think the problem might be?
JOE: It could be that his browser does not allow download of PDF files with passwords. But that's just a guess. I will try sending him the file by email.
CALLIOPE: Another mystery.
JOE: What would life be without them. Talk with you tomorrow.

(Herb and tea market)

JOE: Good morning Calliope.
CALLIOPE: Good morning Joe. How is your column coming?
JOE: Glad you asked. It's finished and ready for the presses.
CALLIOPE: Tell me about it.
JOE: I ended up writing about Sir Francis Bacon's quote about books.
CALLIOPE: Which is?
JOE: "Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed and some few others to be chewed and digested."
CALLIOPE: I remember the quote- seventeenth century wasn't it?
JOE: Precisely. I thought it made a good framework for my thoughts about why we read books.
CALLIOPE: Indeed. How did you go about it?
JOE: I gave examples of books falling into each category from my own recent reading.
CALLIOPE: And then?
JOE: I encouraged my readers to taste the delights, swallow learnings and enhance their lives with books.
CALLIOPE: Noble of you.
JOE: I wanted to support an endeavor which has brought me great satisfaction over the years. Talk with you tomorrow.

(Windjammer Cafe)

JOE: Good morning Calliope.
CALLIOPE: Good morning Joe. How's you column coming?
JOE: Interesting you should ask.
CALLIOPE: Well?
JOE: You hit it on the head yesterday. My topic of addressing health and the environment exceeded the constraints of 500 words.
CALLIOPE: So now what?
JOE: I will put off the topic until I figure out what to do with it.
CALLIOPE: And in the mean time?
JOE: I woke up very early this morning wondering why people read books at all.
CALLIOPE: Any specifics?
JOE: I recalled Francis Bacon's quote about some books to be tasted, some to be swallowed and a few chewed and digested.
CALLIOPE: Do you plan to pursue that topic in this week's column?
JOE: I do.
CALLIOPE: Sounds interesting.
JOE: I'd better get to work on it. Talk with you tomorrow.

(Seaside)

JOE: Good morning Calliope.
CALLIOPE: Good morning Joe. What's up today?
JOE: I'm taking a break from wrestling with technology.
CALLIOPE: What brought that on?
JOE: My commitment to writing a column and newsletter for the coming Saturday.
CALLIOPE: Do you have a topic in mind?
JOE: I do.
CALLIOPE: And?
JOE: I want to write about how our concern about finances and health intersect with the way we treat our earth.
CALLIOPE: It sounds like a task for a lifetime rather than a column.
JOE: I agree. Still I want to address it. The problem is how to say something meaningful in 500 words.
CALLIOPE: Quite a challenge. How do you plan to approach it?
JOE: That's what I have been pondering. Maybe I will present it as one of my life mysteries and just open up the topic.
CALLIOPE: That would be a start. Nobody seems to be thinking much about these connections.
JOE: I'll get my mental wheels turning and see what happens. Talk with you tomorrow.

(Dog Days of Summer)

JOE: Good morning Calliope.
CALLIOPE: Good morning Joe. How are you today?
JOE: Realizing I spoke too soon about my mastery of technology.
CALLIOPE: How so?
JOE: I thought I had everything under control with my websites and emails.
CALLIOPE: Not quite?
JOE: No. A while ago when I reloaded my websites, my e-mail got put somewhere else so it would not disappear. Friday I tried to put it back where it belonged but it got blocked.
CALLIOPE: So now what?
JOE: I called this morning to straighten it out and think it will be okay, but possibly not until tomorrow morning.
CALLIOPE: What are the implications for your e-book?
JOE: I want to make sure everything is working correctly before I post the file on my website.
CALLIOPE: Sounds like you're getting close.
JOE: That's the way it sounds to me too.
CALLIOPE: So now what?
JOE: I have correspondence to catch up with and then back to work on Marital Property. Talk with you tomorrow.