In his travels, Cagle has found that success as a cartoonist involves two key ingredients: having a passion for the art form and the need to be a visual artist. There must be a seamless way both the words and the images work together so that the story can be told. Cagle cites cartoonist Jerry Scott’s work, Baby Blues and Zits as great examples of "visual humor writing."

For this reason, the NCS is a tremendous resource for aspiring cartoonists. For example, the site includes an advice column from Chris Browne, the creator of the comic strip, Hagar the Horrible, which gives his perspective of how to break into the industry. The site also includes links to other organizations that would be beneficial.

Helping other aspiring cartoonists is just one example of the "extended-family" nature of most cartoonists. And no one cartoonist personified that philosophy more than the late Charles Schulz. A member of the National Cartoonists Society, Schulz was always approachable, both to his colleagues, and to those interested in the field.

"He was the greatest of them all," Cagle said. "Sparky (Schulz’s nickname) was helpful to all young cartoonists, as well as being humble and generous. He never made you feel intimidated by his success."

While it takes talent and perseverance, with a little luck thrown in between, aspiring cartoonists can find a place within the industry. But the key is to make the development of your craft your number-one priority.

Cagle adds: "You should start when you’re three years old and draw all day, every day."

Copyright © 2000 Michael Casano

Inside a Women’s Conference: Check, Please!

By Melanie Hauser

Editor's Note: The electronic age has had a tremendous effect on the way we work and live. However, it hasn't necessarily been the greatest thing for aspiring writers. Submitted for your approval: a certain writer's e-query.

To: enlightened magazine/publisher@writing.net

Subject: Query for outstanding article

Dear Ms. Enlightened Editor:

Thank you for accepting e-mail queries! It is so refreshing to meet someone in the publishing world bold enough to take advantage of the Internet and all it has to offer!

I wonder why it is so few in your profession choose to do so? It is so much easier on me, the writer, to spend a minute or two quickley tiping a brief message, rahter than taking the time to compose a letter, print it, run a label, find a stamp, take it to the post office, etc. etc.

And don't you think it's just so much friendlier, using e-mail? Doesn't it just make the world seem closer, strangers seem like friends? As I was telling my cousin Eunice the other day, (the one with the really bad bunions, that she gets from having to work two jobs because that worthless husband of hers just sits in front of the television day after day, instead of going out and getting a job himself), I just love the intimacy of the Internet!

Well, to get down to business, (because I'm sure you're a very busy person, even though you're just a doll about this e-mail thing!) I have written an article I feel sure would be just right for your publication. Just in time for the vacation season, I explore the many different ways parents can keep children occupied during long car trips. I am confident this is an original topic, one that hasn't already been covered to death, like some others I have come across in your wonderful publication.

Attached, in a file, I'm not sure exactly what kind of file it is, it may or may not be text only, but I'm sure you can figure it out when you open it, is my article. I look forward to hearing from you!

Sincerely, Melanie Hauser

To: enlightened magazine/publisher@writing.net

Subject: Re: Query for outstanding article

Oops! After I sent my previous e-mail, I noticed that I had one or two typs in the body of my message. Please read quickley as quickly, tiping as typing, and rahter as rather. Me apologies!

(I really did mean to use spell check, but the phone rang, it was Eunice again, can you believe it? I mean, for a woman with two jubs, you would think that she wouldn’t have time to call me five times a day, wouldn’t you?)

Appropriately chagrined,

Melanie Hauser

To: enlightened magazine/publisher@writing.net

Subject: Re: Query for outstanding article (again)

I am so sorry! I realize I forgot to actually attach my article! I do that all the time, I compose the e-mail, but forget to attach the attachment! My apologies!

Oh, and, yes, I forgot to run spellcheck again. Pleaes rest assured, I thoroughly proofread my articles. It's just that I tend to hit "send"; as soon as I'm done writing, in the hopes that I'll get a reply back right away. Who knows, you could be sitting at your desk just waiting for that wonderful little message telling you that you have mail! Because I am so sure of that, if I don't recieve a reply to my query by tonight, I'll e-mail you again tomorrow. Just in case. Becaues you never know, you might think I'm sending one of those computer viruses and delete it by mistake. I mean, I know that would be the only reason I wouldn't get an immediate response. (Did I tell you Eunice actually opened that Love Bug virus? That girl is not playing with a full deck, if she thought for one moment anyone in the world would send her anything like a love note. Especially her worthless husand, who thanks the Internet is some kind of contraceptive device.)

Anyway, I apologize, and promise not to bother you again : (

To: enlightened magazine/publisher@writing.net

Subject: Re: Query for outstanding article (really, it's the last time)

Oops! I obviously meant : ), not : (. Sorry! : (. : )!

P.S. You know, I'm still puzzling over why so few of you accept e-mail queries. I suppose you might not like making your e-mail address available to everyone. I mean, you never know who might start sending you those chain letters and things. Eunice does that to me all the time. But really, I always say, you have to trust people. The majority of us are thoroughly profesional, as you can see.

Copyright ©2000 Melanie Hauser

Soup for Those Deadline Munchies

By Corene Johnston

Like an overdue library book, slewing back and forth across the bench seat of a pickup on a winding mountain road, I have a nascent volume clunking around in my head. Blap!, it slips into the deep, primal warmth of my amygdala. Scree!, it slides upon the surface of my concrete, objective, cerebral cortex.

"Write what you know about," said Miss Mulready, my third grade teacher. Now, nearly half a century later, I have many bits of knowledge. Recently a couple of insights about one of them hit me like a sledge between the eyes: I am not the only one who has ever found the closing of my parents' house after their deaths to be a rite-of-passage! And it would have been helpful if I had read something that would give me realistic expectations of both the amount of sheer, physical labor, and the merry-go-round of emotions that I would experience.

Was it normal to feel physically exhausted while standing in the middle of the den, just contemplating stacks in which the bottom magazines were dated 1978? Did I need to hide the fact from my brother Ken that I spent most of one afternoon sitting in my mother's chair crying while I read his letters to my folks — among others from my school friends after we had all dispersed to college, nursing school and Vietnam? How do others approach decisions about what mementos go to which relatives? I realized I was well qualified to write about what I now know from that teary, tiring, consciousness-expanding task.

I went to work on a chapter outline in purple fine line marker on an old, faded legal pad. I wrote on the top of the page, "Closing the Homeplace," followed by such section titles as "Finding Your Childhood Stuff" a "Time for Reflection;" "The Logistics of It All" "Phone Calls, Dirt, Dust, Phone Calls, Paper Work, Renting A Dumpster, Phone Calls, Aching Muscles, Phone Calls;" "Finding Out Your Parents' Secrets" "Expanding Your Perceptions, Losing Your Stereotypes," and "Home at Last" "The Transition into the Next Generation." I knew each topic would require some introductory and summary paragraphs, sandwiching interviews with a varied cross section of people who had closed their original homeplaces. I knew it would take a lot of work. And I'd have to find a literary agent — never before a task I had to achieve.

"Firm up your ideas," I said to myself. "Flesh out your outline." That way, I'd have something visible and professional looking to offer the next literary agent who wandered into our Appalachian hollow. So I mentally set aside a day to put a fresh floppy into my computer and convert my scratchy plum-colored notes into a crisp proposal. Thursday, that's when I'd get to it. On Thursday.

But as it turned out, that was the best day for my friend Annie to go on the wild leek seeking expedition we had been planning. So, Thursday it was. I put home baked bread into our knapsack along with a couple of digging trowels; Annie supplied wine and goat cheese she'd recently brought back from France.

Leeks, or ramps, are not as common in the north as they are farther south, so we set out to drive the 65 miles or so to a spot described by my friend Roger. By about three in the afternoon, we had visited an antique shop, where I bought a glass manakin head suitable for display of the jewelry I make, had picked up a few additions to our summer wardrobes at a Goodwill, and had savored our picnic in a stone pavilion, sheltered from the rain, which began about noon. We were still 30 or 40 miles from the place where ramps were reputedly rampant.

"Phoo," we said, and began an equally meandering route home. The week before, Annie had obtained just enough wild leeks to produce a tasty soup recipe in time for her newspaper food column deadline. But ahead of me was still the job of making a respectable looking proposal for my guide to a common mid-adulthood rite of passage. And I still had no clue how to get help finding an agent.

To be continued...

POSTSCRIPT:

Annie and I got home too late to make supper, but for future reference, I had the recipe for

ANNIE'S WILD LEEK AND SMOKED TROUT SOUP
serves 6

1 Tbsp. Butter

2 cup chopped wild leek bulbs (may substitute onion or scallion)

4 cups diced red-skin potatoes

1 qt. water

2 tsp sea salt

1 side smoked trout, boned & flaked

2 cups cream or half & half

additional salt and/or freshly ground pepper to taste

Garnishes: chopped chives, homemade croutons, violet blossoms (in early spring, when available)

Melt butter and saute leeks until transparent. Add potatoes, water and salt and cook 20-30 minutes, till potatoes are tender and almost falling apart. Add smoked trout and cream and simmer for 5 minutes. Season to taste with pepper and additional salt, if desired. Float garnishes atop the soup after bowls are filled.

Note for free lancers: a break in the woods can clear your head and provide you with the leeks, chives and violets for this soup, and supermarket smoked salmon or whitefish can be substituted

for the trout. If you divide this into four bowls, rather than six, it serves as a dandy main course.

Copyright ©2000 Corene Johntson

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