Writing isn't the only way to play with words. Take them down a peg, look at them as just letters, forms on a page and you can make a different art with them. This isn't writing, its a whole new creation.

ASCII art is my personal favourite so the links included with this newsletter are mostly ASCII art. But, there are other ways to get into the game of playing with your words. Typography is playing with fonts. What others have you found? Email me, I'd like to hear about them.

There is the whole riddle, puzzle, Scrabble issue. But, I'm looking at making plain ordinary everyday text into art.

Does anyone make ASCII art or am I the only retro geek? Someday, that ever illusive day, I want to make a whole website in just ASCII and ASCII art as illustrations/ graphics. I've seen one done in this way. It was very unique looking now. Back in the old days of dinosaur computers it would have been normal, if not cutting edge.

Anyway, this week take a break from fiddling with words and try something new. Play around and look at them in a whole new way. You and your keyboard will never be the same again.

One thing anyone reading this newsletter has in common is that we are writing online. Its a different market/ medium from print, obviously. But not always in obvious ways. The language is different. The rate at which content needs to be refreshed is much different. The problems with having content stolen are also different and more challenging. But, there is a huge audience out there, if you can lure them in. You don't have to be a big ticket item like Woman's Day, Cosmo or National Geographic to pull in readers. But, you do have to find a way of pulling them in.

One other difference that not a lot of writers take advantage of is self promotion. You can set yourself up as the controller of your own little empire. Add all the clips you want, promote them everywhere possible and even break into new markets by offering free content to other sites.

But, you do have to take those first steps and get yourself out there, into the community. A big part of doing that is a personal/ professional website. You really do need a place to hang your hat online, an address to send people to when they want to know more about you, see what you know and how you think. Also, of course what you have that someone else doesn't already have.

One important thing is balancing personal and professional. Unless you have a couple of separate websites You need to make sure your website isn't saying too much about you. There are some hobbies, collectibles, activities, political leanings you might not want to offer up right away. For me its Wicca. My sister was looking over my resume and was astonished that I had left in a reference to my BackWash column, Bewitching Vagabond. She strongly suggested I take it out. I decided she was right and I have removed it. The resume is now loaded onto my site. Though in an HTML file it lost all the formatting I had done in Lotus and again in Word.

Anyway, I am having to revamp my personal site again due to the Witchiness of it. The easiest solution is to remove that section to a secret location on my domain. In other words just take the link off my front page. That is probably what I will do. All my clips and essays are still there but only available upon request or to those I choose to share them with.

What about your own site? Is there anything there you need to consider a problem area? Assuming you have a site, of course. If you don't the links below might help you get started.

Add a resume to your site too. Just don't be careless about leaving your street address and phone numbers on there. Blank them out or just delete them.

Words are great. They come in a variety of styles, sizes and shapes. They don't need to be fed and clothed or taken for walks. They won't beg for food at your table and they never pee on the carpet. They have other ways of nagging at you, digging into your soul and making you lose sleep and even your sanity along with it. Words really are mightier than the sword. Just ask any writer staring at a blank sheet of paper or word processor screen.

Do you have a muse? I don't. What I do seem to have is a being that takes over my body and my mind and lets me watch while she/ he creates wonderful things with words. I'm not suffering a split personality or psychic interbody takeover, or whatever. It just seems at times that I am not the one doing the writing at all. I don't know where it comes from but I can see my fingers busily tapping away at the keyboard. I don't think that is what a muse is.

To me a muse is an inspiration that you hope you can continue to rely on for as long as you pull words out of the air and put them neatly (or messily) in some form of print.

If I have a muse it is the words themselves. I have long had a love affair with words. I could sleep with them, roll in them and live my life learning all of them by name. My favourite words are the kind that sound like their meaning or those old English type words like bewitching, beguile and serendipity. On a college exam I used the word persnickety as a word that sounded like what it meant. It was not accepted, not that I failed but she insisted persnickety was not a word. I still don't know. Some dictionaries have it and some don't.

But, to me any word that more than half a dozen people know about, is a word. Its up to us to figure it out.

Can you write when you are really tired? I've read that some writers think they write better when they can barely keep awake due to lack of sleep or lack of good judgment when it came to the beer. Right now I am falling asleep and finding myself typing something I am half dreaming. So here come the links. Just a bit late for the regular Monday newsletter.

A writer can be more than the words they spin.

Ever thought of drawing something to go with your writing? Or taking a photograph to go with your article? Or even, creating words to go with your drawings, like a comic?

Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words. As much as we love them, words are typography on paper but pictures bring a new element into your words, light and shadow and instant gratification. One look and half or all of the story can be told. The words become more information, details, the rest of the story.

Publishers looking for photographs or drawings will pay for them. They could be paying you.