Take Back Your Life!

Men write 75% of op-ed columns. For some reason, women have not broken through this journalistic glass ceiling. Op-eds require a strong writing voice. That may scare or turn some women off. It also requires a tough skin. Op-ed writers can get hammered by readers in the comment sections. Negative comments tend to be more forthcoming than positive ones.

I’ve learned to let these comments fuel my passion to write even more wild and disobedient op-eds.

Honestly, it’s my favorite type of writing. I get to unleash my voice. I get to be bold. I get to be sassy. I get to use my Nancy Drew investigative skills. I get to pull disparate thoughts together into something new. To me, it’s a labor of creative love.

On February 25, 2012, I’m taking a seminar in Boston through the Op-Ed Project. This group has been going around the country trying to encourage women to share their voices in op-ed columns. I want to get my voice into the biggest, loudest, baddest op-ed venues I can. And soon, I’m going to offer an op-ed writing class on-line and in-person.

The world needs women to share their voices. It may be the missing link to a world that lessens suffering and promotes beauty.

Here’s my latest piece in The MetroWest Daily News: Keystone PipeLine: A Bad Idea.  You’ll see what I mean about unpleasant comments. Some of them were left by oil-industry folks. It’s their job to discredit anyone who disagrees with the powerful. It’s a compliment that they found my op-ed and ripped it to shreds!

For those of you interested in how I got my start in op-ed writing. I began writing letters to the editor, then free guest columns and now paid columns. I tend to write complex pieces that require quite a bit of research and the connecting of dots not previously connected.

Do any of you men or women write op-ed pieces or want to? How do you feel about unleashing your strongest voice to the public?

Thanks! G.

I enjoy reading the blogs of others. Gives me great ideas for posts, essays, programs, life adventures. Yesterday, I visited Judy Clement Wall’s newest site, “It’s A Human Thing,” where she continues her love affair with showing love, especially in her writing. It always feels like she’s hugging the reader with her beautiful words.

J, as she likes to be called, has written a new love manifesto/poem that encourages her readers to choose love. Here are the first four lines:

Choose love.

In your relationships,
in the art you create,
the words you let loose,
the causes you take up, (more…)

Hello folks,

I’ve long thought that a lack of creative thinking ability has stalled the worldwide economy.

A multitude of problems need solving, yet we continue to prop up dead and dying industries or copy existing ones. It doesn’t make much sense unless you see the root cause as an inability to move forward, an inability to create a meaningful economy, an inability to dream up something new. (more…)