Writing Club... UNBC Writing Club Masters of the Written Word H ello students, This is your master speaking... well, not really. Seriously though, the Writing Club is doing a student anthology, titled Insert Title Here, and you will submit something or you will face the consequences. Our submission details are as follows: font size 12, Times New Roman, single spaced and preferably less than six pages. You can submit something longer but we cannot guarantee it a spot in our excellent book. Our themes are Strange Realities, Memories/Dreams, Living World/Dead World, Home, or a topic of your choice, and we will accept poems, short stories, short plays and monologues. Our deadline is February 12, 2016. Submit something by then and we will not wreak havoc on your life. If you have any questions/submissions email us at either unbewritingclub@gmail.com or unbc.anthology@gmail.com. All the love. Writing Club. UNC Life and Writing Tips Amanda Ramsay Guest Contributor Wis are everywhere it seems, at local coffee shops and all over the internet. They are highly reachable through social media such as facebook and twitter, but the tips and tricks they provide readers are often heard recommendations. One less oft recommendation I have recently taken up is carrying around a notepad and pen combo and having a permanent small pad at home. Why? Well, I’ve learned that when those moments of “eureka” occur it’s very important to have with me some form of writing utensil and paper. Some might think “pretty obvious,” right? In the past I’ve used receipts, cue cards, backs of business cards to jot down a great idea before it dissipates from my foggy brain. More diverse is the number and types of utensils I’ve used to do the actual scribbling: a mascara wand, the very tip of a pencil that was broken off and lying at the bottom of my car floor and lipstick. These seem crazy. Sure, but it beats pricking your finger and writing with blood. But why, oh why, am I mentioning this? The reason is simple. I used to carry around one book. Correction, I used to carry around loads of books, once. Eventually they got lost and the ideas I had with them. In regards to my practices, I’ve lost enough brain cells to those facepalm moments and needed a change badly. The key trick to this is that there is one master notepad. Mine is a little brown notepad I bought at a great coffeehouse over eight years ago. It says ‘Ideas can change the world} and has every idea that’s popped in my head since I bought it. The trick is to stow it away in your desk drawer (or wherever you do your writing) and then use it only to transfer thoughts from other travel pads. Once the thoughts, ideas or story plots are drawn or written up in your master pad at home you rip out the pages in the little notepads and recycle them. Or, if you hate waste, then you can rip out the ideas and place them in a note card box at home. The main trick here is to ensure you never take the master notepad with you when you go out. You can lose all those crazy notepads as often as you want, especially at $0.30 a piece at the local dollar store, you'll rest fine and easy. Just be sure you don’t lose one with your next bestselling novel’s plot. That could suck. Amanda Ramsay is a local writer and business owner attending classes at UNBC to finish a degree she started eight years ago. Her background is in marketing and advertising for corporations and nonprofits. If you have any comments, suggestions or questions for Amanda, she can be reached at info@poplarideas.ca.