Prepping for NaNoWriMo

Fall is off to a busy start!

I’m getting ready for November, which is National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), http://nanowrimo.org/. I signed up for NaNoWriMo Camp this past July. I didn’t finish but I was able to develop some new ideas for my novel. Several months ago, I purchased Scrivener, a software program for writers. I worked with it during the camp, but wanted to learn more about the program. Currently, I’m taking a class, taught by Gwen Hernandez, author of Scrivener for Dummies. The book was published in 2012. The class is offered a few times a year. It’s giving me a better understanding of all the things Scrivener can do.You can learn more about the class and the book at Gwen’s website, http://gwenhernandez.com.

Last December, I decided I was going to read one book each week of 2013. For the most part, I have been doing this. I have only missed a few weeks. Two of these books (I’ve read one and am reading the second) concern novel writing. No Plot? No Problem!: A Low-Stress, High-Velocity Guide to Writing a Novel in 30 Days was written by Chris Baty, the founder of NaNoWriMo. Ready, Set, Novel!: A Workbook, by Lindsey Grant, Tavia stewart-Streit, and Chris Baty, will help you plan and plot your novel. I recommend both of these books.

Next month is the annual free online writing conference, The Muse. The conference dates are Oct 7 – 13 and registration ends October 1. There are many workshops, taught by authors, agents and others in the industry. I highly recommend “attending” this event. It’s great for any writer, no matter what the genre. http://themuseonlinewritersconference.com/.

An FYI -- A new website for The Muse went live earlier this month. If you registered prior to the new website going up, I suggest logging in to make sure your account was transferred to the new database. Glitches sometimes happen. I discovered that my account, which I created a few years ago, and my conference registration, had disappeared.You must have an account and register for the conference before the deadline, in order to attend. If you don't register, you won't get access to the conference. My advice is to double check your account and registration if you originally created that account and/or registered for the conference on the old site.

I’m looking forward to The Muse and NaNoWriMo and I hope to see you there!

Debbie A. Byrne has a B.S. in Mass Communication with a minor in History. She is a member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI) and is working on her first children’s book.

Follow that Writing Trail!

We all know the story of Hansel and Gretel, right? No? Well, basically this is a well-known German fairy tale originally published by the Brothers Grimm in 1812. When a young brother and sister, Hansel and Gretel, wander into the woods, they take a slice of bread and leave a trail of crumbs to follow home. Brilliant idea, however, the birds eat the crumbs, and they are lost in the woods. We'll leave the story at that point.

Recently, I spent time following crumbs left by other writers. Thankfully they weren't eaten by the birds. (The crumbs that is, not the writers--they're fine.) The crumbs I followed were actually links tucked into posts on blogs and even in comments. 

This leads me to the question, How often do you follow links (URLs) in articles?

Certainly, if you followed all the links in some articles, you would never reach the end. I make it a practice to always read the complete piece, then if a link interests me, I go back and follow it. Even then, I am careful to right click and "open link in new window". That way I don't lose the referring article until I know I'm finished with it.

The post I was reading was on the this Writers on the Move blog and was titled, Why Write a Memoir? Wait! Remember what I said? Read to the end before following those links! The writer, Heidi M. Thomas, speaks about how to capture short snippets of life. I opened the comment section to add a response and read the other comments. A fellow writer, Mary Jo Guglielmo, had this to say, "I like doing short memoirs or Flash memoirs." And she added a link. 

Hmm. Flash memoirs? I read to the end of the comments and added my own. Then I returned to Mary Jo's comment and followed her link. This took me to a guest post on the same blog by yet another writer, Jane Hertenstein. In the second paragraph, Jane wrote,  "Six Minute Magazine is looking for quality fiction that can be read in under six minutes." And she gave a link.

I finished reading then returned to that URL. I'd never heard of the Six Minute Magazine. It sounded fun. I had a look around their landing page, and then spotted an invitation to "visit our partner website, FLASH FICTION FORUMS." And you've guessed it. Another link!

Intrigued, I right clicked on that one too, and it took me to a series of forums. I was about to close the window when I spotted a topic that caught my attention: Word Games: Got a word game? Have a short writing game? Share it here with members of the site!

This sounded intriguing, so off I went to a page full of fun-sounding games. I noticed the topic Three Word Story had 7 pages of comments. 

How could you write a story in three words? I decided to investigate. This link took me to a post that introduced a new idea like this -- Each poster copy/pastes the previous post then adds three new words to develop the story. The writer then gave the command, "Start!" and then the words, As he was . . .

Those were the initial three words of the story. I glanced ahead and saw the next seven pages were loaded with a gradually unfolding story. What fun! Time to stop following links. I had work to do.

I opened my mail program and commenced an email to my on-line writers group for South African Christian Writers. I explained how the exercise worked and then issued the command, "Start!" I gave them the words, "The elephant lowered . . . " and hit send. I can't wait to see how it turns out. Should be fun. 

This got me thinking. How often do we miss some real treasures because we don't follow the trails laid down for us by other writers? Now I'm not for one second suggesting we click on every link, but maybe we need to glance back at the article when we finish reading it, and see if there are any trails worth investigating. After all, if you're not a South African Christian Writer, you probably don't want to follow those crumbs. But sometimes following an almost hidden path could lead to some fascinating on-line destination.

Just don't forget to right click and open in a new tab or window so you can find your way home, otherwise the birds might get there first, and you could be lost on-line. Forever. 

Let's have some fun. Click on comments, copy/paste the previous comment, and progress the sentence by a further three words.

Start!   The sun is . . . 

 Other posts about writing exercises: 

Wanted: One Writing Buddy

A Story About a Bowl? You're Kidding!

See what's happening with the South African 3-word story.

SHIRLEY CORDER  lives a short walk from the seaside in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, with her husband Rob. She is author of Strength Renewed: Meditations for your Journey through Breast Cancer. Shirley is also contributing author to ten other books and has published hundreds of devotions and articles internationally. 

Visit Shirley on her website to inspire and encourage writers, or on Rise and Soar, her website for encouraging those on the cancer journey. 

Follow her on Twitter or "like" her Author's page on Facebook, and provided you leave a link, she'may even follow you back.

When Life Gets in the Way

It is never a question of when life gets in the way regarding my writing but the question is what to do about it? Here are a few tips to keep the writing front and center of your real life.

1. Remember that writing IS your life. Treat it like a scheduled appointment if you have to but write something everyday.
2. Use self imposed deadlines, goal lists, outlines, or colorful pads to keep you inspired. Do what it takes to write, revise, polish, submit, and research your next project. The alternative is to say writing is your hobby and delegate it to the backseat of life. Less guilt over being unproductive and the admission helps you to declare your real life intentions to your inner self. You decide.
3. Make a list of actions that you need to take to put your writing career on the next level. Writing these actions down in concrete terms helps you to be accountable and makes your writing real.
4. Even when life gets in the way....( happened to me this week making this post late) make yourself write something, anything, even in the midst of chaos. After all you are a writer. Remind yourself of this and go forth and write.

This week......wrote a book review, a post here, a blog post for my quilt shop blog, and submitted a PB manuscript all during a week when I traveled for business, had a death on the in-law side of the family, worked a12hour night shift, and did a job interview. Where there is a will to succeed as a writer, there truly is a way.

Writing and Marketing – Doing Business Online and Email Privacy

I belong to a number of environmental and health related groups. One of those groups is Care2.com.

Care2 sent an alert about Google’s Gmail and your privacy. It seems Google reads “every word of every single email you send or receive every single day,” including those involving “personal relationships, your health information, your finances, and more.”

YIKES!

Google’s response to a lawsuit against them for this invasion of privacy is that their users have “no legitimate expectation of privacy” in regard to their email.

Again, YIKES!

Interestingly, it’s a federal offense to read another person’s traditional mail. Why isn’t email held up to the same privacy expectations, especially when Google uses the information in our emails to target you with ads.


As part of your online writing and marketing endeavors, it's certain you're using email. And, it almost as certain that your emailing family and possibly health and financial professionals. This email information should be private.

I signed the petition Care2 has in place to tell Google I expect email privacy. If you feel inclined to do the same, the link to the online petition is:

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/429/574/063/?z00m=20629232

Please take action and share this alert.

Karen

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More on Writing and Marketing

Email Marketing – Your Opt-in Landing Page
Authors Need Discoverability More Than Findability
Create an Infographic

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P.S. To keep up with writing and marketing information, along with Free webinars, join us in The Writing World (top right top sidebar).

Karen Cioffi
Award-Winning Author, Freelancer/Ghostwriter
Author/Writer Online Platform Instructor
Build an Online Platform That Works

Karen Cioffi Professional Writing Services

The Write Verb

To tighten your writing and take it to the next level, evaluate and upgrade your use of verbs. 

Choosing the right verbs signals strength in your writing and creates a sense of urgency for your readers. 

When writing the first draft our focus, as writers, is getting words on the page, when the time comes for revision, step up your game and create a clear and concise visual picture. That means looking at your verb usage. 

Some things to keep in mind:

1. When you rely on "to be" and its other forms, your writing will be static. When you can upgrade to more dynamic verbs your writing will soar. Search your writing for the following words: to be, was, were, are, and is. Then work to remove them. Sometimes an easy substitution works, sometimes it means reorganizing your sentence structure, but whatever it takes, remove weak verbs.

2. When you rely on "to be" and its other forms, you may tend to also rely on the use of adverbs. You've probably heard before how the use of adverbs should be used only when you absolutely must. Let's try that sentence again: You've heard, don't use adverbs they are a crutch. Peruse your work and search for all words ending in "ly."

3. Work to remove gerunds. Gerunds are verbs that end in "ing" and act as nouns. An example: In writing, only choosing strong verbs is best. Which can be reworked to read: In writing, choose strong verbs. 

Now get out their and pump up your writing.

______________________________

D. Jean Quarles is a writer of Women's Fiction and a co-author of a Young Adult Science Fiction Series. Her latest book, Flight from the Water Planet, Book 1 of The Exodus Series was written with coauthor, Austine Etcheverry.

D. Jean loves to tell stories of personal growth – where success has nothing to do with money or fame, but of living life to the fullest. She is also the author of the novels: Rocky's Mountains, Fire in the Hole and, Perception. The Mermaid, an award winning short story was published in the anthology, Tales from a Sweltering City.  

She is a wife, mother, grandmother and business coach. In her free time . . . ha! ha! ha! Anyway, you can find more about D. Jean Quarles, her writing and her books at her website at www.djeanquarles.com

You can also follower her at www.djeanquarles.blogspot.com or on Facebook

Self-Imposed Deadlines and Other Tricks for Getting Your Writing Done

by Suzanne Lieurance

If you’re a freelance writer, you probably have editors and clients who set deadlines for you.


But if you’re a writer who is trying to write a novel or just get some articles posted to your blog on a regular basis, or submit queries to magazine markets every week, you probably need some tricks to help you stay on track.

Here are a few that work for me and other writers I coach:

1. Set Self-Imposed Deadlines.
If you set deadlines for everything you want to do, chances are you’ll be more likely to finish each of these tasks. That’s because anything we choose to do tends to take as much time to complete as we allow it. That means if you don’t set a deadline for finishing that next chapter of your novel, you could be working on that chapter for weeks, months, or even (gulp) years! Set a tight deadline for that next chapter instead. Then make a point to meet that deadline.

2. Find a writing buddy or accountability partner.
You’ll be more likely to meet your self-imposed deadlines if you have someone to be accountable to for these deadlines. A writing buddy or accountability partner is perfect for this. Tell this person the date of your next deadline, then check in with him when that deadline rolls around and report your progress. After doing this a few times, you’ll start to feel like a real slug if you aren’t meeting your deadlines, especially if your partner is always meeting his.

3. Set up short chunks of time for each project.
Generally, you’ll get more writing done when you don’t have all day to write. If you have all day, you’ll waste time because, well, you’ve got all day, so what’s the rush? But if you set aside specific chunks of time to get your writing done, you’ll know you don’t have all day and you’ll be more likely to get right to work and get something done.

4. Pare Down Your Daily To-Do List
When your to-do list for the day is too long, you’ll feel so stressed and overwhelmed, you may decide, “I can’t possibly get all this stuff done today” and, guess what? You’ll probably just sit there and do nothing! Sounds weird, I know. But I’ve seen it happen. Heck. I’ve even been guilty of this myself.

5. Write in a Relaxed State
Before you sit down to write, take a few moments to just sit and relax. Close your eyes, take deep breaths. Let go of thoughts of everything else in your life, so you can just concentrate on the writing you need to do. If you've followed Tip 3 – by setting up short chunks of time for each project – you should be able to relax and focus once you sit down to write because there isn't anything else you should be doing at this time.

Following these tips should help you get and stay focused on your writing so you get some work done each week. But first, DECIDE that you will be a productive writer. Whether you realize it or not, when you waste time or allow yourself to lose focus on your writing, you're DECIDING to let this happen. Now simply choose to be a focused, productive writer instead.

Try it!



Suzanne Lieurance is an author, freelance writer, certified professional life coach and writing coach, speaker and workshop presenter. She is a former classroom teacher and was an instructor for the Institute of Children's Literature for over 8 years.

Lieurance has written over two dozen published books and hundreds of articles for newspapers, magazines, and other publications. She lives and writes by the sea in Jensen Beach, Florida. Visit her blog at www.writebythesea.com or find out about her coaching for writers at www.workingwriterscoach.com.

Marketing with Online Press Releases - eReleases September Special

If you're doing any kind of business online, you most likely regularly or occasionally find the need to write and distribute an online press release. I know I do. But, if you haven't thought about using press releases, let's go over what they're good for:

Online press releases, through distribution services, are an excellent marketing tool to increase your visibility and bring traffic to your site. And, they bring major attention to what you want to promote, such as a new product, a special you’re offering, a workshop, a new or revised book, new services, and so on.

Press releases also broaden your reach. There are tons of subscribers, including businesses and journalists, who look for relevant information they can use. In addition, press releases boost your chances of being picked up and featured on industry websites and even news stations.

If you have something new, or upgraded something, or revised something, or are offering a special, you NEED to get that information in a press release.

Being an affiliate for eReleases.com, an online press release distributor, I get updates on all the specials they have AND they're currently having a September Special, right through the 30th.

Get $25 Off on Any Service from eReleases.com by using Coupon Code: SEP8-Z25.

That’s a really great offer. If you have something to shout about, do it now.

Just CLICK THE LINK BELOW to get started. And, don’t forget to use the Special Coupon Code: SEP8-Z25.

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