3 Apps to Help Writers

Gravatar

What: 

Gravatar, a WordPress Platform feature, is a globally recognized Avatar.  Just upload your image and create your profile. When a blog user leaves a comment, his/her Gravatar is exhibited with the comment. (The blog's software scans for the gravatar that matches the e-mail the blogger has entered.)

Benefits:
Your online presence will be facilitated by your  unique Gravatar. Don't waste time typing your name and contact info every time you comment on a blog. Just use your professional Gravatar with your blog comments.

Timenye

What:
An ideal time-tracking App for freelancers who need to monitor the time spent on client projects and bill accordingly.

Benefits: 
You can monitor your daily, weekly and monthly writing tasks in real time using the pie chart. You can also retrieve your daily activities. Timeneye learns your habits and tracks time for you.

Note: Timenye helped me to identify the extra time I spent to satisfy a client's growing expectations for a blog. This made it easy for me to estimate additional fees and to streamline tasks.

EVERNOTE

What:
EVERNOTE is a cloud-based App that lets you store and organize your research notes, urls, images, etc,

Benefits:
This app is a fantastic catch all for all your writing tasks:
- Take screen shots to capture ideas for inspiration, and add tags and notes.
- Find your notes, photos, etc., with the handy indexed, searchable, tagging feature.
- Use your phone to take screen shots of off-line research, receipts, etc., and upload to EVERNOTE.

Note: I have created notebooks for each of my writing projects, related marketing tasks, and monthly income reports. Before EVERNOTE, I wasted a lot of time bookmarking sites and creating files with urls and research notes in google docs. It was hard to keep track of all my research. EVERNOTE has made this process efficient and viable for me. But there is a lot more to EVERNOTE. I am looking forward to learning how to use it to its full potential.

More resources to help writers maximize their output

5 Steps to Preventing Scope Creep (and Still Keeping Your Clients Happy):
Advice for freelancers: What to do when client projects become bigger than what was agreed upon.

How to create an accurate estimate for your projects: Tools and strategies to reduce stress and efficiently manage your workload.

How to manage your time: Apply time management skills for a successful writing career.

_________________________________________________________________________________

Deb Toor is a nonfiction writer and freelance blogger. She is the author of Survival Secrets of Turkey Vultures, a suspense-adventure story for grades 4 to 6 that is based on peer-reviewed science. She is also a ghostwriter for a health blog.

Debra Toor Author, Eco-Literacy Connections, Free Lesson Plans p:905-510-9804 | e:debtoor@gmail.com | w:www.ecostoriesbydebtoor.com

The Frugal Book Promoter Shares Back-of-Book Partnership Idea

I just couldn't resist sharing this--my fave new idea--for working with fellow authors to cross-promote!   

Publishing/Marketing Partnership Tip

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How can you sell more books—any book, fiction or nonfiction—without doing all the heavy lifting yourself? Partner with an author who writes in your genre or on your topic. Here’s how: Include the first one to three chapters of their book in the back of your book and they do the same for you. You’ve automatically reached your target audience, gotten what amounts to an endorsement from a fellow author. After you’ve done the original planning (finding a reliable partner and adding one another’s material to your self-published book), the rewards keep coming in effortlessly!

Here are suggestions for making this cross-promotion work well:

 

1. Choose an author who writes in your genre or on a similar nonfiction topic, though the topic could be broad like politics.

 

2. Choose an author whose work you admire and who admires your work as well.

 

3. Plan well ahead and agree on the parameters of the agreement. Will you include an introduction (a kind of recommendation) before the chapters? How will you do it? With just a title like “Recommended Reading for Those Who Love Horror,” or with a personal introduction about your partner and why you like his or her work. How many words or pages of your partner’s work will you include in your book? (Be careful not to let the number of your author’s pages push you into another level where your book will cost more to print!)

 

4. If the number of pages is problematic, do it only in the e-book version of your book.

 

5. As an alternative, partner on a promotional e-book that you promote and give away free. You could use many more than two authors for this idea and agree on how many e-books and how much marketing each author must contribute to be included. Call it a “Free Sampler for Future Reading on the State of American Politics” or something else that matches your needs. I did something like this years ago. It was a cookbook and that cookbook was not only a smashing success, but the authors continued to use it for holidays years after we published it. I did give readers of The Frugal Book Promoter a case study of the entire project--MBA style.   

If you choose to do this, let me know about it. Send me an e-copy at HoJoNews@aol.com. I’ll use your note and links to the free book in the Letters-to-the-Editor section of my SharingwithWriters newsletter. (You can subscribe to the newsletter at http://HowToDoItFrugally.com).

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Carolyn Howard-Johnson’s brings her experience as a publicist, journalist, marketer, and retailer to the advice she gives in her HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers and the classes she has taught for UCLA Extension’s world-renown Writers’ Program. The first edition of The Frugal Book Promoter was named USA Book News’ “Best Professional Book” and won the coveted Irwin Award. Now in its second edition, it’s also a USA Book News award winner and received a nod from Dan Poynter’s Global Ebook Awards. Her The Frugal Editor: Put Your Best Book Forward to Avoid Humiliation and Ensure Success was also honored by USA Book News and won Readers’ Views Literary Award. Her marketing campaign for that book won the marketing award from New Generation Indie Book Awards. The second edition e-book was honored by Next Generation Indie Awards in the e-book category.

 

How to Avoid Exposition in Dialogue

Good dialogue can stick the reader right in the middle of the action.  It can reveal a lot about the characters and help pacing.  But writing dialogue can be tricky.

Today's pitfall is what I call "exposition in dialogue" or "dialogue for the benefit of the reader."  This is when two characters tell each other things they both already know and have no reason to talk about, just to give the reader important information.  It's unnatural and awkward and should generally be avoided.

Example of Exposition in Dialogue:

I'm going to exaggerate a little here to illustrate the point.

Scene:  Lila and Tom are brother and sister, both young adults.  They're together when Tom gets a phone call.  He hardly says anything, and when he hangs up, he turns to Lila.

"John Abernathy's dead."

"No," Lila said, sinking into a chair.  "John Abernathy is our grandfather.  He owned two canneries in Alaska, and I remember how bad they smelled.  Our mother fell out with him and we haven't seen him for ten years, but still, I can't believe it.  We didn't even know he was sick."  

Okay, so most of the examples in our writing aren't this bad, but I see less glaring cases all the time, and it's something we need to watch for.  These two people already know this information.  There's no reason they'd say it like this.

Solutions:

1)  Narrate.

"Grandpa John is dead."

"No," Lila said, sinking into a chair.  John Abernathy was their grandfather, but they hadn't seen him in years, not since he and their mother had fallen out.  They'd visited him once in Alaska, where he owned two canneries.  Lila could still smell the fish if she closed her eyes.  How could he be dead?  She hadn't even known he was sick.

2)  Argue.  Twist the conversation into an argument to give them a reason to discuss it.  Maybe your characters remember things differently.  Maybe they have different ideas about the consequences or the importance or the truth of the background information.

"Grandpa John is dead."

"No," Lila said, sinking into a chair.  "Mom's gonna be sorry now."

"It wasn't her fault they argued.  Grandpa--"

"That's just her side of the story.  We don't know what happened.  And she didn't have to cut him out of our lives completely.  Now we've lost all these years, and we'll never get them back."

"It wasn't exactly as if he was the best grandpa before, hiding himself away in Alaska.  He cared more about his canneries than he ever cared about us."

3)  Reminisce.  Have the characters take a walk down memory lane.  Be careful with this, however, as it can sound forced.

"Grandpa John is dead."

"No," said Lila, sinking into a chair.  "Dead?  He was strong as a bull."

"Ten years ago he was.  But things change."

"Remember the tour he gave us of his canneries in Alaska?"

"He let me chop the heads off the fish.  I thought it was the coolest thing."

"It was disgusting.  And the smell...but he was so proud of everything. I wish he and Mom hadn't fought.  Now it's too late.."

4)  Tell a character who doesn't know.  Bring a third character into the conversation, one who really doesn't know the information.  Use this sparingly, as it can also come across as too convenient and lazy on the author's part.

"John Abernathy's dead."

"No," Lila said, sinking into a chair.

"Who's John Abernathy?" Tom's girlfriend asked. 

"Our grandpa.  Mom's dad."

"I didn't know he was still around.  You never talk about him."

"We haven't seen him for years," Tom said.  "He does fish canning up in Alaska.  Mom had an argument with him a long time ago and wouldn't let us have anything to do with him."

"I'm so sorry."

More examples:

"Captain, if we get a whole in the hull, we'll sink!"

Uh...he's a pretty bad captain if he doesn't know this.

Solution:  be more specific:  "Captain, a whole that big will sink us in less than fifteen minutes." 


"As you know, Jake got married six months ago.  Now I can't talk to him without his wife hanging on his arm."

Solution:  rephrase to build on what the listener knows:  "Ever since Jake got married, I can't talk to him without his wife hanging on his arm."

Final Test:

When you think your dialogue is good, read it aloud.  That's often the best way to hear if something sounds unnatural.

Melinda Brasher currently teaches English as a second language in the beautiful Czech Republic.  She loves the sound of glaciers calving and the smell of old books.  Her travel articles and short fiction appear in Go Nomad, International Living, Electric Spec, Intergalactic Medicine Show, and others.  For an e-book collection of some of her favorite pieces, check out Leaving Home.  Visit her online at http://www.melindabrasher.com.

Researching Historical Fiction, From Beginning to End

By Karen Mann

Researching to write historical fiction is interesting and even exciting. The first thing to consider is going to the location of the novel and walking the streets your characters walked. Interview people. Go to the library there. Take time to find out how that place sounds, feels, tastes, looks, and smells.

However, when writing my novel The Woman of La Mancha, I was unable to go to Spain or even more specifically, I was unable to go to sixteenth-century Spain, yet my readers tell me I have made that time period vividly alive. How was I able to do that? Through extensive library and online research.

To begin, get a general overview of the time period. I started by reading one book about the time period. From that beginning, I understood the kinds of things I needed to research. My next stop was a weekend at university library. I made a lot of copies (2 bankers’ boxes full). Then went home and read and read.

Today, online research may be the first thing to do. Organize your bookmarks so you can easily find the pages where you find information. Be discerning about your online research to be sure you feel it’s accurate. Often you can find books or chapters of books online. Through libraries, you can access databases which may have even more accurate and detailed information than webpages. Remember the stacks at the library when you went to college? Nearly all those books and magazine are available online now. Consult your local library to find out how to access them.

Organize your notes by category: costumes, food, religion, government, farming, education, healing, illnesses, family life, architecture, household furnishings, hunting, music, art, literature, and more. Don’t leave any stone unturned; you need to have the entire picture of that society so you can write specifically about it.

You don’t have to write down everything you read. You are going to begin to get an overall picture of what that time period was like. You’ll be able to imagine yourself there and you’ll be able to imagine your characters there.

But there are details you will want to keep handy for reference. To keep that information handy, find a system that works for you to find the information you need when you need it. It might be something as simple as a spreadsheet. Type or paste information in worksheets with appropriate titles so you can find what you are looking for. Or your system might be a more elaborate software program or actual pieces of paper in a file cabinet. 
The more you research, the more you’ll have an idea of what you know (you know how they dressed in the eighteenth century) and what you don’t know (you don’t know how they prepared their food), so you can focus research on those topics to fill in the blanks.

Over time I assimilated everything. Nothing went to waste. It was as if I were sitting there while I wrote.

What is the key to incorporating the information in your writing? Find the most interesting tidbits. Don’t repeat facts by rote; adapt what you’ve read to your writing. Sometimes it’s only a word from that period, or the name of a particular cloth, a particular kind of chair or weapon. Maybe it’s how you make a porridge or ale or how you bake bread. Maybe it’s the flowers that bloom in the spring or how a harpsichord sounds. Bring each tidbit alive through evoking the senses or recreating specific and vivid scenes. Research informs your writing. Use it wisely and bring your writing to life.

Karen Mann is the author of The Woman of La Mancha and The Saved Man. She is the co-founder and Administrative Director of the low-residency Master of Fine Arts in Writing Program at Spalding University and managing editor of The Louisville Review, a national literary magazine since 1976. Having lived in Indiana most of her life, she now lives in San Jose, California. See more about her books at www.karenmannwrites.com.

About The Woman of La Mancha:

The Woman of La Mancha, a companion book to Don Quixote, tells the woman’s story of Don Quixote by recounting the story of the girl he called Dulcinea, the woman he loved from afar.

It’s 1583. An eleven-year-old girl wakes in the back of a cart. She has lost her memory and is taken in by a kindly farm family in La Mancha. She adopts the name Aldonza. She doesn’t speak for quite some time. Once she speaks, there is a family member who is jealous of her and causes a good deal of trouble, even causing her to be forced to leave La Mancha in tragic circumstances. Having to create a new life in a new location and still unaware of her birth family, she adopts the name Dulcinea and moves in the circles of nobility. While seeking her identity, she becomes the consort of wealthy men, finds reason to disguise herself as a man, and learns herbal healing to help others.

There is a parallel story of a young man, Don Christopher, a knight of King Philip and the betrothed of the girl, who sets off on with a young squire, Sancho, to find the girl. Christopher’s adventures take them across Spain and force him to grow up. Does he continue the quest to find his betrothed or marry another and break the contract with the king?

Both young people have many experiences and grow up before the readers’ eyes. Floating in and out of each other’s paths as they travel around Spain, will they eventually find each other and be together?

~~~~~
MORE ON WRITING

Tips on Writing Suspense Stories for Children
Tips and Tools to Make Your Writing Life Easier
Essentials for Managing Your Writing Career

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Why You Absolutely Need an Author Website as Part of Your Book Marketing

Before I get into why you absolutely need a website as part of your book marketing strategy, according to TechTerms.com, the definition of a website is:

A Website, or Web site, is not the same thing as a Web page. Though the two terms are often used interchangeably, they should not be. So what's the difference? To put it simply, a Web site is a collection of Web pages. For example, Amazon.com is a Web site, but there are millions of Web pages that make up the site.

BusinessDictionary.com describes a website as a “virtual location” that’s accessible via unique URLs and an internet connection.

It's kind of like your house. It has a street address that people can find using roadways. If they have a GPS, they simply plug in the address and are given a direct path to your house.

Your website is your virtual home. Rather, it’s your virtual place of business and must be ‘findable’ and accessible. The URL is your address. And, rather than physical streets, people find you through virtual roadways in cyberspace. And, they find you within seconds.

The website is a critical part of every online platform. In fact, it’s fundamental to your platform and your content marketing (and inbound marketing) strategy.

Because of this, you need to generate visibility and traffic to that site.

Why?

Well, there’s so much ‘noise’ (competition) in cyberspace it’s very, very, very difficult to cut through it.

To give you an idea of the magnitude and power of the internet, here are several statistics:

•    Worldwide internets users have reached 3,035,749.340, as of June 2014

*Source: Internet World Stats
•    1.8 Billions are on Social Networks
•    North America has 81% Internet Penetration
•    Top Social Networks added 135 Million users in 2013
•    Facebook now has 1.184 Billion Users
•    There are 6.5 Billion Mobile Subscriptions globally

*Source: The 2014 Global Digital Statistics, Stats & Facts SlideShare presentation from the guys at We Are Social

•    There are over one billion active websites (1)
•    There are 347 WordPress blog posts added each minute (2)
•    Google processes over 40,000 global searches EVERY SECOND (1)
•    Google processes over 3.5 BILLION global searches EACH DAY (1)
•    81% of businesses consider their blogs an important asset (3)
•    Of all internet users, 82.6% use search (3)
•    Studies found that online searchers are more likely to buy

(1)  http://www.internetlivestats.com/total-number-of-websites/
(2) http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2381188/Revealed-happens-just-ONE-minute-internet-216-000-photos-posted-278-000-Tweets-1-8m-Facebook-likes.html
(3) http://www.searchenginejournal.com/24-eye-popping-seo-statistics/42665/

The internet is teeming with websites, information, and searches and these statistics are OLD. And, if you’re promoting or offering anything, you must have an optimized platform that includes an optimized website. There is no way around this fundamental fact.

To get your home business or small business moving in the right direction, you also need to take advantage of marketing strategies that will bring people to your website. You need to know the basics of website optimization (easy to do stuff), blogging, email marketing, and social media marketing.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Karen Cioffi is an award-winning children’s author and children’s ghostwriter/ rewriter, and coach. She is also the founder and editor-in-chief of Writers on the Move and author online platform instructor with WOW! Women on Writing.

If you’d like more writing tips or help with your children’s story, check out: Writing for Children with Karen Cioffi.

If you'd like to take a peek at my 4-week, interactive e-class through WOW! Women on Writing, BUILD YOUR AUTHOR/WRITER PLATFORM, just click the clickable link.

MORE ON MARKETING

Blogging with Purpose
Strategies to Get Book Reviews
What is Social Media Proof? Is It Important?

Tips on Writing Suspense Stories for Children, Part 2

Go get the biggest bag you can find. That is, if you want to be a fiction writer. Pack your tools with care. They must all fit. Granted some are large, some small; there is an amazing amount you will need. One of the most important items to pack is your treatment of death. And as we know, writing for the formidable minds of young children under the age of 12, death cannot be taken lightly.

Banned Books
Nowhere is an author's weigh-in on death and other touchy subjects more conspicuous than during Banned Books Week, this year September 27th-October 3rd. The event, sponsored by such reputable organizations as the American Booksellers Association and the National Council of Teachers of English, and endorsed by the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress, "highlights the value of free and open access to information."

Reasons cited by challengers: offensive language, unsuited for age group and violence. Example: In 2013 there were 307 challenges reported by the Office for Intellectual Freedom for ten of the most challenged books in schools and libraries. #1: Captain Underpants (series), by Dav Pilkey, beating out Fifty Shades of Grey, by E.L. James by three, which came in as #4. Reasons: Offensive language, unsuited for age group, violence. But, wait. I remember reading in an article about Pilkey that he realized in third grade that everyone loves to laugh about underpants. The accompanying photo had him wearing fake glasses with a big nose. Isn't that exactly the kind of stuff kids love? To have some fun, go to http://www.pilkey.com/.  You'll see Pilkey's fake facial ensemble and lots more.

What's a Children's Author to do?
Break ground. That's the advice given at every conference and in every class I've taken on writing for children. Editors try to explain why they like a book--love a book--but in the end, they can't pinpoint the reason. They just know a good book when they see one.

So, the burning question for suspense writers for young children is, what's suspense without a death or the threat of one? One example of a banned book that dealt with death that created a crater in kiddie lit is Bridge to Terabithia, by Katherine Paterson. Terabithia is considered a children's literature classic, published in 1977; awarded the Newbery Medal in 1978. The book is a staple of English studies in many countries, including the U.S.

Terabithia is the story of two fifth-graders who create an imaginary kingdom in the woods named Terabithia; Jess as king, Leslie as queen. Paterson's inspiration came from a terrible accident in 1974 when a friend of her son's was killed from a lightning strike. "I was trying to make sense of a tragedy that made no sense," Paterson says in an interview by Peter T. Chattaway / February 12, 2007 with Christianity Today. Katherine Paterson, whose parents were missionaries and whose husband was a Presbyterian minister, says, ". . . kid lit doesn't have to be 'safe.' After all, the Bible sure isn't."

Paterson's book made #8 on the most frequently banned books list, 1990-1999 and #10 in 2003. As Emily Bazelon put it in an article for Slate, " . . .  somehow the lesson is not that Jess and Leslie should never have swung on the rope to their enchanted spot. Rather, the story suggests how "death is always at the back of risk and beauty," as the friend I saw the movie with put it. That message, of life's indelible tragic contours, helps explain the power of Paterson's story 30 years after it was written and its relevance for our addled child-rearing times. To read the article
go to: http://www.slate.com/articles/life/family/2007/02/sudden_death.html

Investigate Other Treatments of Death
Early on as a budding children's novelist, I decided to go death-lite and not tackle the subject head-on, at least not at first. One of my current WIP's deals with what I consider death-in-the-abstract: a ghost story. Two of my "model" books that I have studied are The Green Ghost and The Blue Ghost, by Marion Dane Bauer. The reading level, RL, which can be found in most children's books on the inside or outside of the front or back cover, for The Green Ghost is 2.0, second grade; ages 6-9, stated as 006-009. Once a writing instructor for the MFA programs at Vermont College of Fine Arts, Bauer's ghost stories at first glance seem simple. Analyze the books, however, and I think you'll be amazed at how the deaths of the ghosts are extremely subtle; moreover in The Green Ghost the main character turns out to be a surprise--not who you might think.

Two other books, which were suggested as additional reading in one of the children's writing courses I've taken, are Prisoners at the Kitchen Table, by Barbara Holland (Clarion Books: 1979), and The Dollhouse Murders, by Betty Ren Wright (originally published by Holiday: 1983), for age 9+, fourth grade and up. I consider these two books to be good examples of psychological thrillers for children.

• Prisoners deals with kidnapping, no death: A man and woman tell Polly Conover such a convincing story about being her aunt and uncle that she and friend Josh Blake get in their car, believing they're going to Polly's house for a surprise. Instead, the children are taken to a secluded farmhouse miles away from home and are stuck there scared, lonely and bored, until their parents can come up with ransom money. Finally, Josh thinks up a way to escape. The book is lauded by reviewers. In Amazon.com reviews, one reviewer wrote, "I must have checked Prisoners at the Kitchen Table out of my local public library at least once a month, prior to 4th grade." Other reviewers wrote that Prisoners is an exciting book that that involves friendship, teamwork and courage, and is an important safety reminder not to believe a stranger's story and get into a stranger's car.
• Doll House deals with the past murder of a young girl's grandparents: In the attic twelve-year-old Amy finds a dollhouse that is "an exact replica of the family home," and is haunted. The dolls, representing Amy's relatives, move every time she visits the dollhouse. Her aunt doesn't believe it, but Amy believes the dolls are trying to tell her something. By researching old newspaper clippings at the library, she discovers a family secret: that her grandparents were murdered. A reviewer wrote that Doll House was passed around among her friends in fourth grade. She read it again as an adult and wrote: "What blows me away . . . is that the story is haunting and frightening at any age, but is appropriate for a child. While it deals with murder and ghosts, it's handled with care and without gore. And still, this many years later, I had those spine tingles that I crave in a good book, and find so rarely."
• My thoughts: I believe young children want to be scared out of their wits just like everybody else. Why not do this for them with great care, understanding and grace?

For more about suspense writing, please visit last month's post:  "Unravel the Mystery of  Suspense, Part 1".

Articles that contributed to this post: http://www.ala.org/bbooks/bannedbooksweek; http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2014/09/26/banned-books-week-the-10-most-challenged-books-every-year-since-2000; http://bannedbooks.world.edu/2012/11/04/banned-books-awareness-bridge-to-terabithia/

Linda Wilson, a former elementary teacher and ICL graduate, has published over 40 articles for adults and children and six short stories for children. Recently she completed Joyce Sweeney's online fiction and picture book courses. She is currently working on several projects for children. Follow Linda on Facebook.

A Picture Paints a Thousand Words

Originally published March 27, 2014

When I was a child, I lingered with my Golden Books, intently studying the pictures. They were as important, if not more important, than the story. 

We all know how moving a picture can be to help tell a story - whether simple or complex. But how about the picture being the source of inspiration for a story or article?

If you're feeling the late winter slump (particularly those of us who live where spring is in a holding pattern), grab a book of photographs and find a cozy spot to browse and reflect.

Time Life, National Geographic, and even your own photo albums are chock full of material to get you thinking. Not only that, but it is relaxing and will help take your mind off everything that vies for attention.

I keep my iPhone or camera handy and I'm in the routine of capturing special moments in time. 

I took this picture when I went snowshoeing this winter and it produced several ideas for an article.

When I woke up one morning in my daughter's apartment, this is what I saw:

(That one is tucked away for later).

Here's one from my backyard, just before a storm. As I watched the sky groan with turmoil, it conjured up a plot of the struggles that can come in a relationship.

Finally, some years ago, my 5-year-old made this drawing on our computer. It sparked an idea for a children's book I'd like to write:

If you haven't tried letting pictures help you write, try it!

Whatever your genre, pictures will help you paint a thousand words.  

~~~

After raising and homeschooling her 8 children and teaching art classes for 10 years, Kathy has found time to pursue freelance writing. She enjoys writing magazine articles and more recently had her story, "One of a Kind", published in The Kids' Ark. You can find her passion to bring encouragement and hope to people of all ages at When It Hurts - http://kathleenmoulton.com

Photo credit: Kathleen Moulton © all rights reserved