The Slow and Steady School of Writing

Write A Book in Six Weeks

2012-02-08T03:23:00.000-08:00

Yep--you read that right. The challenge book I am working with says quite clearly Write A Book in Six Days. But we're slow writers so I'm adapting it as we go to suit me. Hopefully anyone who writes slowly can manage the six week challenge too or even adapt it to six months.

You can find the link to download the book by clicking on the image at the top of the right hand column. I'm not promising to leave it there forever LOL We're not going to spend six years writing a thirty page e-book, though I'm sure it may happen. One day, someone may report back on this post with a success story after years of dedication to the task.

(The book and question mark link, by the way, is an adapted gif and is courtesy of www.bigoo.ws who have lots of lovely images for use free on blogs, social network sites and websites) But I digress.

Ruth Barringham, who has kindly allowed me to share her book here with you, is one of the writer-coaches I have long followed and trust. Her Writeaholics newsletter is a must read in my mailbox. I don't spend big bucks on courses and recommendations (I'm Scottish, remember) but I always profit from the leads, resources, tips and advice she so generously offers.

Start Writing That Book
I have innumerable WIPS progressing slowly but really need a way to finish something. The web is full of write your book in x days, could be three, could be six, could be seven.

Some of us write slowly. It may be because of other home or work commitments--only so much you can achieve when you fall asleep over the laptop time after time. It may be because of a curious nature which leads us to surf from idea to idea rather than settle firmly pounding away at the masterpiece. It may be that we're just perfectionists and want to have everything right before we publish.

Last week I received Ruth's book and might have saved it for a rainy day but then this week Angela Booth sent her Write and Sell an Ebook in a Week article. It seemed like a sign or even a kick in a delicate place to set me in motion.

So off I go and hopefully you may join me on Wednesdays for six weeks and let's see how we do. If you want a copy of Angela's article, or if you have any difficulty downloading the book, let me know in the comments below.

Beginnings.

Beginnings are crucial except at the beginning. You'll be writing this first, you'll be writing it last. Only when you finish will you be sure of writing the best beginning you possibly can.

But Week One is there to help us focus on what we're beginning and, most importantly, why we want to do this.

Task One:
Write your statement of intent. Ruth goes into this in detail and breaks the idea down into a step by step plan.This may take a day or two.

Task Two:

Plan and plot the book. As a mathematician. I decide on a word count and I would suggest a maximum of 50,000 for an e-book. With the increasing popularity of e-book readers, more may be possible. But many people still print out their e-books so remember that when deciding on length.

I then divide my word count into a number of sections or chapters. You may choose your word count dependent on how many words you can realistically manage to write in a week and then multiply that total by the number of writing weeks you will devote to the project.

Task Three:

Write your sales pitch or book blurb. What is your book's unique selling point? What makes it different? What will it do for your reader? Fact or fiction, it must meet the needs of the reader.

Share your findings in the comments box below. I shall certainly be logging in whenever I have something to report. And hopefully I'll have something logged and be ready to move on next Wednesday.

Happy Writing.

.

Liebster Blog Award Nominees

2012-02-06T04:39:00.000-08:00

An extra special post and an extra special day. My Valentine's come early.

This very special post is a radiant thank you to children's author Carol A.Bender for nominating me for the Liebster Blog Award.

I met Carol through the wonderful Mother Reader challenge which introduced me to so many talented writers and artists.

I love her blog and its wonderful photos at carolbenderauthor.blogspot.com and there's another plus. She's a bird fan too. Her hens look almost exactly like my chickies--rescued battery hens.

British Hen Welfare Trust rescued battery hens

Check out her books on Amazon (Picky Eater, That Peter has consistent five star reviews).

What is the Liebster Blog Award?

Legend has it that The Liebster Blog Award originated in Germany. Liebster means dearest or beloved, and Liebe is love. The award is meant to encourage readership of small, lovable blogs with fewer than 200 followers.

And it's so lovely to feel lovable. It made my day.

In accepting the Liebster Blog Award, the recipient agrees to:

*Thank the person who gave them the award and link back to that person’s blog--yay! thanks Carol. I'm so honored.

*Copy and paste the award to their blog--done and I'll be moving it to a permanent place high on my sidebar too.

*Reveal five snippets about themselves that readers may not already know: aaargh. There had to be a catch.

Okay here goes:

I am addicted to eating clementines
I am a deadline junkie as everyone I work with knows. But then, they don't read my blog and don't know how lovable I am.
I love blue skies, mystery novels and robins
My feet do a happy dance every time a new follower joins my blog
Favorite shopping challenge: calculating the change I'm due before the cash machine does it. Quiet whisper: I like lists and counting.

*Reveal the five blogs they have chosen to receive the award, commenting on their blog to break the news! To qualify, the blog must have fewer than 200 followers.

*Hope those people in turn pay it forward by accepting and awarding “The Liebster Blog Award” to bloggers they would like to honor.

My Liebster Blog Award Nominees

Now this was truly difficult. So many wonderful bloggers but some have too many followers to qualify and with others I just guessed that they had. Miranda Paul already has an award. Others I hoped to include had no blog. Can you conceive it! No blog! LOL

My blog winners are all writers, published and fairly well known (one day everyone will know their names!) and they are:

Wendy Laharnar
children's and YA author: 3rd place YA fiction in P& E readers' poll

Alice M Roelke :
sci-fi and fantasy author. Look out for Watch Over Me this year.

Viviane Brentanos
romance author: first place for romance fiction in P& E readers' poll

NancyFamolari
mystery novelist with helpful writing tips blog

Jane Richardson

Scottish author.

Midnight Oil by Marva Dasef

2012-01-29T05:00:00.000-08:00

My special guest today is Marva Dasef. Marva's first book in the Witches of Galdorheim series Bad Spelling came second in the children's fiction section of the recent P&E reader polls. It also appeared in the Top Ten of the YA section.

Marva is offering a free e-book to a lucky blog reader here today. All you have to do to be in with a chance of winning is read this post and leave a comment.

Love the tagline for the book--irresistible.

About Midnight Oil

MIDNIGHT OIL is Book 2 of the Witches of
Galdorheim

Shipwrecked on a legendary island, how can a
witch rescue her boyfriend if she can’t even
phone home?

MuseItUp Buy Page: http://tinyurl.com/6wswbsf
Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B006UTL54A

Kat discovers that an evil forest spirit has
kidnapped her brand-new boyfriend. She sets out
with her brother, Rune, from her Arctic island
home on a mission to rescue the boy.

Things go wrong from the start. Kat is thrown overboard
during a violent storm, while her brother and
his girlfriend are captured by a mutant island
tribe. The mutants hold the girlfriend hostage,
demanding that the teens recover the only thing
that can make the mutants human again–the
magical Midnight Oil.

Mustering every bit of her Wiccan magic, Kat
rises to the challenge. She invokes her magical
skills, learns to fly an ultralight, meets a
legendary sea serpent, rescues her boyfriend,
and helps a friendly air spirit win the battle
against her spiteful sibling. On top of it all,
she’s able to recover the Midnight Oil and help
the hapless mutants in the nick of time.

The Buddy Story: Rune and Ivansi

Butch and Sundance, Crosby and Hope, Han Solo
and Chewbacca. All buddy movies, despite being
in completely different genres. There’s
something primal about two guys getting
together and going on an adventure.

While Midnight Oil focuses mainly on Kat’s
journey, the relationship between Rune (Kat’s
half brother) and Ivansi (Kat’s grandfather) is
a close second. The two hardly know each other
at the beginning of the story, but learn about
each others’ strengths and weaknesses as they
are thrown together to find the elusive and
magical Midnight Oil.

The young warlock and the old warrior have a
difficult task to handle. They’re the pair who
have to talk to the Nenets gods to locate the
oil, then have a long and difficult journey to
get to it. Most of the trip is by sea, but when
the two hit land, they’re on foot. They’d
really like to find another mode of
transportation.

Excerpt from Midnight Oil:

Midnight Oil

The men continued to talk, and Rune listened,
picking up a word here and there. He wondered
if he could sneak a translation spell in with
nobody noticing. Rune decided against it since
it required speaking Old Runic and using a
summoning gesture. Big red letters would form
over his head, spelling out W-A-R-L-O-C-K. Best
to leave well enough alone and just let Ivansi
handle this.

Ivansi and the headman stood. Rune jumped up,
too. The two men walked away from the group
toward a small lean-to shed next to the house.
The man opened the swinging door, and Rune’s
eyes lit up. He quickly suppressed the glow and
grinned. The scooter! It had a logo on its
front end written in chrome italic lettering—
Vespa.

The scooter had a two-person seat. The front-
end consisted of a curved shield designed to
protect the rider’s legs, topped by a
headlight. On the inside of the knee shield, he
saw a couple of dials: speedometer and RPM. A
short windshield stuck up from the handlebars.
It wasn’t much different from the snowmobiles
Rune had a chance to ride with the trolls.
Wheels instead of skids, and it had a much
smaller engine than the snowmobiles. Rear view
mirrors stood up on both ends of the
handlebars. Rune could hardly wait to fire it
up.

The two men bantered a couple of minutes. Rune
could recognize a bartering session in any
language. Ivansi took out his hunting knife
from its sheath and handed it to the man, who
inspected it closely. It was a beautiful knife,
with an etched blade and an elaborately carved
handle made from walrus tusk. The tusk was
yellowed with age, but the blade flashed in the
sunlight, clean and sharp.

The man nodded. Ivansi unbuckled his belt, slid
the sheath from it, and held it out to the man,
who grinned broadly as he inspected it. Then,
he set the knife on a shelf and dug into a
pouch tied on his belt. He handed a key to
Ivansi who passed it to Rune. “Can drive?”

“Oh, yeah! No problem.” Rune slid the key into
the ignition, grasped the handlebars, toed up
the kickstand, and walked it out of the shed.
The man followed, pointing to this or that
control. Rune didn’t know what he was saying
but got the idea. He looked it over, pulled on
the hand brakes to see if they moved smoothly.

The scooter proved to be in excellent
condition. And red! Rune thought it an omen
that the scooter came in ‘his’ color.
Ivansi gave thanks to the Vespa’s owner. Man
and boy mounted their wheeled steed. Rune
turned the key, and the little engine buzzed
like a mad wasp. He let out the hand clutch,
the scooter hopped a couple of times, and they
took off down the road. The purple haze ran
ahead of them, showing them the way to Finland.
* * * *

Learn more about Marva and her work:

Links:
Websites: http://marvadasef.com/
http://mgddasef.blogspot.com http://mgddasef.blogspot.com

Book Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?http://www.youtube.com/watch? v=tdfNTVeMS1s

Social Sites:
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/MarvaDasef
Google+: https://plus.google.com/u/0/?https://plus.google.com/u/0/?tab=wX#107073845875601488093/posts
Twitter Handle: @Gurina

Other Books by Marva Dasef from MuseItUp:

Bad Spelling: Book 1 of the Witches of Galdorheim
A klutzy witch, a shaman's curse, a quest to save her
family. Can Kat find her magic in time?

Missing, Assumed Dead

Prejudice, murder, insanity, suicide: Every
small town has its secrets.

Thanks and Questions

Thanks for being with us today, Marva. I love buddy stories. If you have any questions for Marva, please post them below. And remember please to leave a comment or question below for a chance to win a free e-book from Marva.

Writing Incentives

2012-01-23T15:03:00.000-08:00

Writing Competitions

Competitions often make great writing incentives, especially when the entry fee is low and the prize money is relatively high. Add the bonus of publication and you have an ideal scenario.

Eclat Fiction is seeking short story submissions of under 1500 words for its second edition.to be published on March 1. Three top prizewinners plus five runner up entries will be published. The prizes are a generous £100 for first, £50 for second and £20 for third.

The entry fee is a donation via Paypal and it is left to the author to decide what to donate. Be careful to read the guidelines carefully. The deadline is midnight on February 6 but if you are in USA or Canada, remember to check the difference in time zones. To be safe, send your email with story attached as a word.doc by December 5 at the latest.

You can find the first edition of Eclat Fiction on the site. It's free to read so you can get a fair idea of the standard and what the editor is looking for. There is no set theme but children's fiction and non-fiction are not accepted.

An extensive list of short story competitions including those for flash fiction and children's stories can be found on the Writers Reign website. Note that the closing date for the Twisted Americana competition is now March 12. But be warned. They are looking for dark, very dark, crime fiction.The clue lies in the title.

Overcome fear of submissions

The only sure way of being published is to submit your work. Seems obvious--but for many of us the submissions process can be too high a hurdle.

For this reason I heartily recommend Pub Sub 3rd Friday
the brainwave of author and illustrator Joan Y Edwards.

Her point is simple. The more you submit, the more likely are your chances of being published.

It's certainly worth a try.

Slow writers

And just to cheer up those of us with the everlasting Work In Progress:

Novelist William H. Gass took nearly thirty years to complete his acclaimed novel The Tunnel.

And Californian novelist Thomas Sanchez has taken nearly a decade to write several of his books.

One of my favourite books is The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society another wonderful novel which took years to write. Sadly the author, Mary Ann Shaffer died before it was finally published and the novel, a best seller, was in the end completed by her niece Annie Barrows, herself an author.

Starting a Career as a Children's Writer

2012-01-16T07:53:00.000-08:00

Three sites and challenges this month are specifically geared to encourage new writers considering entering the world of children's fiction.

The Academy of Children's Writers based in the U.K. is now promoting its twenty-sixth annual Write a Story for Children competition. It's the ideal event for as yet unpublished children's writers over 18. Even if you have had work published, you are free to enter provided you received no payment.

Tempting cash prizes of £2000 (U.S.$3400, or 2800 euros) for first place, £300 for second and £200 for third placed story certainly make it worth polishing up a 2000 word or less children's story to send by the closing date of March 31. Only one entry per person and the entry fees are reasonable too.

Sadly email submissions are not accepted so you must make sure to post your entry in time. All rules, conditions of entry and the official entry form are on the Academy of Children's Writers website.

The story can be for children of any age including teenagers. But for younger readers, you may be considering writing a picture book.

So let's find out....

What is a picture book?

Yep, we all know what a picture book is. We all love them but how do you go about writing them?

Some intriguing information about the basic construction of picture books can be found on the Editorial Anonymous site. I had no idea there was so much involved in the counting of words and pages until I read this. And make sure to read through the comments too to garner a wealth of information if you're new to the business of writing picture books.

Tara Lazar has also an informative account of picture book construction on her WordPress site and 52 comments to add to the info..

Joan Y Edwards has produced a wonderfully useful overview of picture books including 25 listed resources. This is the best place to start if you're new to the genre.

If you still think you'd like to write a picture book, there are two picture book challenges starting this month to give you further practice, mentoring and support.

Picture Book Challenges

The first picture book challenge publicised by Lee Wind of the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators has already started and I'm afraid it's just too late for you to sign up officially and be eligible for the Agent Review at the end of the challenge.

But if you're new to the business of creating a picture book dummy, you can learn a lot and profit from the motivation afforded by working alongside experienced writers and illustrators And, of course, pick up some marvelous tips along the way.

The picture book dummy challenge has already started but you still have time to catch up, especially if you already have ideas and inspiration buzzing around in your head.

All you need to know to get started is here on the KidLitArt site.

There are no rules to follow when taking part. The idea is to enjoy yourself while accomplishing something you want to do. To get the most from taking part, involve yourself in the community posts and discussions and check in regularly. You'll meet people who'll really try to help you achieve your ambitions.

12 x 12 Challenge

A picture book writing challenge to produce twelve picture book drafts in twelve months.

I picked this one up from Julie Hedlund's lovely blog. You have until January 29 to sign up. Twelve drafts in twelve months. Sounds easy, huh? Tell me how you got on next year at this time LOL

The wonderful thing about challenges is that no matter how much or how little you complete, you will always have pushed yourself that little bit further along your road as a recognised writer.

Challenges are easy to find

Challenge yourself. Whatever you want to learn or do, just use your search engine to find a suitable challenge community to join to keep you motivated on the long road to recognition.

Or set up your own challenge on your blog to find more readers and followers.

And a challenge for readers

I'm now a judge for the Global eBook Awards and you can be too.
Applications and instructions are here

If you like reading, it seems to me a win-win situation. You get to read free e-books in the category of your choice though you can't judge a section where you have a book of your own entered LOL. And you and your website will garner extra publicity from mentions on the Global eBook Award site. You'll be invited to the grand Awards Ceremony later in the year.

And you get this lovely little logo for your website, blog or whatever. Don't tell me it doesn't look imposing. LOL

Are you up for the challenge? What challenges are you considering taking on for 2012?

How to Succeed...

2012-01-09T04:20:00.000-08:00

...without really trying is no longer an option. And to be truthful, success has a direct correlation with achievable ambition. Deadlines met, articles written, books sold: all equate to success though they may not equate to fame. To succeed as a writer, have the confidence to first of all write, and then to sell.

And there's the rub. The marketing and selling take time, often too much time out of the writing day. Very few writers have the luxury of treating their work as a full-time job. To add marketing into the tricky mix of life commitments can be one job too many.

Some writers are much better at marketing than others. For that reason banding and bonding in writers' groups makes total sense when it comes to spreading the word.

But choose carefully.

The Advantage of Writers' Groups

Meet like-minded authors with the same goals and aspirations
Ask for and receive advice and support about writing and marketing
Access to all the knowledge and accumulated resources of the group as a whole
Support when it comes to promoting your materials.

The Disadvantage of Writers' Groups

Too many emails, promoting work you know nothing about.
Conflicting advice when it comes to problem solving.
Too much time spent reading and learning from others and too little doing any work of your own.
Too broad spectrum of interest.

January Marketing Ideas

The best promotion can often be invisible. Create a following for yourself by following others. Promoting to writers ia always good because all writers read, right? But not all readers write.

The January blog comment challenge at Mother Reader has already opened my eyes to new possibilities for writing, reading and promotion. Aimed mainly at children's and YA writers, it invites you to sign up and comment on five of the participating blogs per day. Not as arduous a task as it sounds. Comment on 100 blogs during 21 days. It has already started but you can easily catch up if you want to. I've been going for two days now and thoroughly enjoying it. Thanks Mary Jo for recommending this one.

Think about it. Your name linked to your website is heading every comment and you're hitting 100 new sites.

From participating, I found The European Reading Challenge which again I shall most certainly take on. There are both European and American sections. (Apologies to my Australian friends. You'll have to check out the site for yourselves. LOL) For this we must read five books and review them before January 31 2013, each from a different European country and written by different European authors.

Several other challenges appear on the site and again it seems to me a way of inculcating best practice when it comes to enhancing

your writing speed
your literary knowlege
interest in your own genre and books.

Anybody interested in joining me? Or do you have other challenges and award promotion possibilities lined up for this month?

Seven Steps to Writing for Article Directories

2012-01-06T03:33:00.000-08:00

Today I am delighted to welcome as a guest Karen Cioffi, writer, editor and marketing expert. Karen's children's book Walking Through Walls is riding high in the Preditors and Editors' 2011 Poll and you can vote for it here.

For those who aren't familiar with the book, it's a children's middle grade fantasy adventure. Find out more about Walking Through Walls.

If, like me, you were lucky enough to enrol in the course she co-hosted with Magdalena Bell at Muse Conference last year, you will already know how valuable her advice is.
Without more ado--over to Karen.


How to Attract Customers with Informational Marketing

7 Steps to Writing forArticle Directories

(from How to Attract Customers With Informational Marketing)

byKaren Cioffi

Among marketing strategies, writing forarticle directories is certainly up there. It offers a large readership withthe advantage of having those readers click back to your site. It also offersthe opportunity of those readers reprinting your article on their blogs and intheir newsletters.

While it is writing for free, it should beconsidered a part of your business expense, at least your time aspect of it.Just like any other form of marketing it is used to create and increase yourvisibility. It’s an investment.

While it can get tedious having to writeand submit articles to the directories, the articles don’t have to be long.Here are seven steps to writing for the directories:

1.Create a title

Your title is by far the most importantelement of your article. The keywords in the title will allow the searchengines to categorize your article properly. This in turn provides a trail foronline searchers looking for the topic of your content to find your article.

The title and title keywords shouldaccurately reflect what the article is about. If they don’t, you’ll losecredibility with the search engines.

To check out the effectiveness of yourkeywords try:

http://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

2.Write an outline

This is optional, because there are manywriters who can write with the fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants method. But, ifyou are more comfortable with an outline, that’s fine. It does providestructure.

3.Create List, How-to, and Step-by-Step articles

This is a popular way to go. Readers loveto see simple 1 2 3 lists of what they should do or should NOT do.

Be sure to include your keyword/s in the title,subtitles, first paragraph and a couple of times throughout the article. Justdon’t overdo it.

4.Parts of the article

Your first paragraph should be interestingand let the reader know what the article is about, but don’t give away too much– you want the reader to continue reading.

Your second paragraph or section shouldinform and elaborate on the first paragraph. This part should fulfill thereader’s expectations.

Your last paragraph should sum up what thearticle is about and conclude with a lead-in to your resource box.

5.Write the minimum word count or just above

Check the guidelines for each particulardirectory. The minimum word count is usually around 400. But, check the site tomake sure. Burn-out is easy with article marketing, especially when you’rewriting for your own sites also. Keeping the articles short and to the pointhelps in this area.

6.The resource box

Some sites allow you to include a resourcebox which is about you and what you can offer the reader. Check the site’sguidelines because they may have specific requirements for the length of theresource box in relation to the length of the article. And, they may prohibitlinks to affiliate sites or promotional sites.

7.SUBMIT

Once your article is complete, submit to anumber of article directories.

Note: If you are submitting to a lot ofdirectories, try to change the title of the article and spin the content a bitfor each directory. This will make the search engines think it’s new content.

If you want to be sure your content won’tbe picked up as duplicate content by Google, check out the site below; it willgive you a duplicate content score.

WordsFinder Duplicate Content Checker andArticle Rewrite Comparison

http://www.wordsfinder.com/tool_duplicate_content_checker.php

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

KarenCioffi is a published author, freelance writer, andmarketer, and to start the New Year witha BANG, from January 1 through February 28, 2012, she is offering all herwriting and marketing e-books (purchaseddirectly from her site/s using the Paypal SHOPPING CART) for $1.19 each. And, this will include newtitles added within that time period.

Fora complete list of the available titles and links to more information, visit Karen's website.

Fora complete list (with brief descriptions of each ebook) go to: http://www.karencioffiwritingandmarketing.com/p/karens-books.html

#AmEditing

2012-01-04T05:59:00.000-08:00

New Year 2012 and coming to terms with the fact that I shall never set the world or even the New York Times Booklist alight with my novels. But they have taught me one thing: how to edit better year by year.

Working with Muse It Up Publishing, one of the success stories of e-book publishing 2011, I have learned about genres I might never have considered adding to my own booklist before. My authors are from the world of romance, romantic suspense, cozy mystery, urban fantasy, sci fi, YA, MG and cross-genres.

I am nominated again in the Preditor and Editor's Poll (vote for me please before January 10 LOL) and currently bursting with pride at sitting just behind some of the best editors in the business.

Many of my books edited and published throughout 2011 have also been gaining five star reviews and at the time of writing are topping the polls in their own categories. So the New Year is starting on a real high.

Others I know will top the lists next year.

Must Do Better

This is the bit I log and never look at till the beginning of the next New Year but falling behind in:

Blog: I do this far too irregularly and without focus

Websites: I have two to complete and one to do for someone else. Spent last month learning to set up a Joomla site. Just love the possibilities but need to finish off the content before going live.

Marketing: Yes, editors need to market too, both to promote the books on their list and to find new authors. ...still looking for my Hemingway.

Editpalooza

This is always a highlight of the New Year for me--an editing bonanza where professional editors mentor a team of authors working to polish their books to publication standard. Last year's authors are already boasting an impressive list of publication acceptances and many are back completing the next book in their series.

There's still time to join up as we've only just started. If you want to finish that problem book, this is your chance. Or put it on the Christmas present wishlist for next year :-)

At MuseItUp we don't in the main handle literary fiction so this is my chance to work with others in that field as well as those writing more commercial genres.

Coming Soon. . .

Join me Friday when I host guest writer and editor Karen Cioffi with an article on writing for article directories--a great way to get your name out there--and some very special offers. Click her link to find out about the free workshop.

Further Your Career as a Volunteer

2011-12-04T23:29:00.000-08:00

Further Your Career as a Proofreader or Editor

Like all Catch-22 situations, to become an editor, you need editing experience. And to my mind, a great place to start is with Project Gutenberg. Project Gutenberg is the original site started to digitize books in the public domain to make them freely available world-wide.

However, as always, take care if you want to offer any of these books as a free download from your own site. What may be in the public domain in one country may not be public domain in another.

The site is always looking for volunteers to help with the proofreading and editing of each new book added. If you can commit to proofreading at least one page a day, you may volunteer as a proofreader and gradually work your way through to more advanced layers of editing.

There's strong support on the forums and even if you don't need the extra credits, it's a brilliant way to help out a great cause.

Further Your Career as an Audio-book Reader

Like Project Gutenberg is LibriVox, providing free audio recordings of books in the public domain. Their aim is to cover each and every book in the public domain.

All you need to volunteer is a computer, free recording software and a microphone if you have one. There are no auditions or speaking tests. Every possible question you might have before beginning is answered in the FAQ sections of the forums.

Other opportunities can also be found advertised in different sections of the forums. You may be working as an unpaid volunteer, but you will be gaining valuable experience and making cyberfriends interested in the same topics.

Further Your Career as a Library Cataloguer

Hoping to develop a library with one web page for every book, The Open Library already has over one million titles listed. Not all are free e-books, however, though you can also use it as a link to borrow many twentieth century e-book titles.

You can add books, edit pages, report any inaccuracies, add book descriptions. Again, it has a comprehensive list of Frequently Asked Questions.

And if they're not already added, why not add your own books and a list of website addresses where they can be obtained?

That way, you can further your career as an author too.

Jo Linsdell Demystifies Live Twitter

2011-11-17T23:30:00.001-08:00

One thing we Slow and Steady Writers have time to do is build ourselves an author platform well in advance of our book's release,

Welcome Jo Linsdell, organiser of Promo Day, to explain how and why to use Live Twitter.

Over to Jo...

Why you need Twitter

Twitter has grown ahuge amount since Jack Dorsey (@Jack) sent out the first tweet on 21st March2006. The micro-blogging site is now considered one of the most popular andpowerful social media sites on the web and boasts over 100million active users across the globe.

This free viralmarketing machine is perfect for writers and authors wanting to spread the wordabout their latest releases. Don't be put off by the 140 character limit. Youcan do a lot more with the site than you might think.

LIVE interviews (alsoreferred to as tweeterviews or twitterviews) are just one way you can useTwitter to extend your message and reach the masses.

The twitter characterlimit can also be a good thing as it forces both the interviewer and theinterviewee to be clear and concise.

How to Follow Live Twitter

There are various waysyou can go about following a LIVE interview:

Use twitter search to follow a hashtag #
Use one of the numerous monitoring tools to follow a hashtag e.g. http://www.monitter.com/
Use one of the sites out there made specifically for LIVE interviews like http://www.tweeterview.com or http://www.tweetchat.com

I prefer to use http://www.tweetchat.com/ for a number of reasons. It's available to everyone and you can easilysign in with your twitter account. Just type in the hashtag you are using (for mycurrent tour it's I4Ttour) and tweetchat will automatically add it each timeyou tweet. You can see a LIVE stream of everyone using your hashtag and byusing the reply button people can see the question you are answering.

How to Advertise your Interview

For the best resultsyou should advertise the interview in advance and send reminders prior to theevent. It's also a good idea to let your followers know what you're doingduring the event by occasionally tweeting "This is a LIVE twitterinterview with @username".

A twitter interviewprovides with the perfect opportunity to keep the conversation going and tointeract with your followers. Plus it gives you material for other featurese.g. you can post the transcript to your blog or other social media sites.

More About Jo

Jo Linsdell is a freelance writer living in Rome, Italy.She writes articles for websites, newspapers and magazines. Herbooks Italian for Tourists and A Guide to Weddings in Italy arecurrently available from various online bookstores including; www.amazon.com and www.barnesandnoble.com. Theycan also be found at www.lulu.com/jolinsdell along with hervarious e-books.

She organises PROMO DAY,an annual online event each May for people in the writing industry.

Writers On The Move: Optimising Social Networking for Authors

2011-11-11T17:46:00.000-08:00

Writers On The Move: Optimising Social Networking for Authors: I know that all of you are social media mavens. I know that you've all got Facebook, LinkedIn, a range of Ning accounts, use Shelfari, Libr...

Italian for Tourists

2011-11-11T05:49:00.001-08:00

Italian for Tourists Virtual Book Tour 2011

Italian For Tourists: Pocket Edition is a basic guide to the Italian language coveringphrases and words most needed by tourists. It includes all the words andphrases a tourist is likely to need during their stay in Italy as well as a pronunciation guide and a mapof Italy.

The phrasebook is divided into 17 chaptersincluding; Emergency, The basics, Common expressions, Learning Italian,Greetings and introducing yourself, Transport, Hotel, Sightseeing, Asking andgiving directions, Food and drink, Health, Shopping, Offices and bureaucracyand Signs and notices and more.

Jo Linsdell came to Italy from the UKin June 2001 and now lives in Romeworking as a freelance writer. She wrote the book drawing on her ownexperience. She explains “A tourist doesn’t need to know everything aboutItalian grammar or the in’s and out’s of buying an apartment. They want to havean easy to use reference book of the language they will need to use andunderstand during their stay”.

So why do Jo and her book fit so well into the Slow and Steady writers theme?

Writing Tips

This type of planning is ideal for those of us who write slowly.

Divide your project into chapter headings
Give yourself a set time in which to complete each chapter or even each section of a chapter
Pinpoint your ideal reader. Don't write for the world. Write for that one tourist, that one romance reader, that one individual who is looking for just the information you are providing

Goes without saying, you want that one person to represent hundreds more with the same need to read a book like yours.

Find a hole in the market and bed yourself right in.

Marketing Tips 1

Jo's main keyword is Italian. It's the first word in her title, the first word in her book blurb and it's used again once in her last paragraph.

That's enough to make her visible in search engines and not overused to flag her as spam.

It's backed up by a couple of references to Italy.

Her secondary keyword--tourists--is again sensibly repeated throughout the text.

Marketing Tips 2

Photographs are great for attracting attention and especially useful at conveying information quickly and easily. This one shows not only the book cover but also Jo looking professional and business-like at her computer.

Extra detail is the insertion of book tour dates and her website URL. A tiny photo but a one-step promotion that's extra branding without being pushy.

Marketing Tips 3

Make sure your copy is always free from mistakes and that you have made each word count.

Jo's last paragraph includes a tiny bio which does everything needed to establish her credentials and outline her ideal reader.

Bring Twitter a-LIVE

I'll be interviewing Jo here soon and publishing her information on working with LIVE Twitter.

First saw that in action with Paolo Coelho answering questions in four different languages.

It's something I need to know more about and I hope you'll join me here next Friday, November 18, to learn from Jo.

Why Buy Books?

2011-11-08T07:07:00.000-08:00

Why do readers buy books? How do we choose what we want to read?

This is perhaps the most important question of all for a writer to answer. If you want someone, apart from family and friends, to buy the book you're writing, you must know what motivates your ideal reader.

Why would he or she be interested in buying your book?

For information. How-to books never fall out of fashion. A concise and easy-to-follow book relaying your area of expertise be it Making Toys for Poodles or Teaching Your Cat Swahili will always find an audience. The trick is to be sure you choose a subject which appeals to a reasonable number of people and which is not over-populated already.
For pleasure or stress-busting. All readers have favourite genres from literary fiction to paranormal romance.
For interest. Put another way, readers buy from curiosity. I buy books through reviews I read in newspapers, magazines or the Internet. More and more I buy from trusted recommendations on social networking sites like Twitter or Facebook, and from authors I cybermeet and find interesting on these or similar sites.

How do you write a best seller?

Ideally you will choose a niche which is popular but not flooded with best selling authors already. In practice, writers are apt to know what they want to write. And this is often what they like to read.

But, as a slow writer,you cannot rely on jumping on this year's band wagon. The wagons inevitably roll by and leave you polished, edited and stranded as yesterday's news.

Both you and your book demand that you become equally proficient at communicating with your potential readers and this is a task you can never start too early.

Brand yourself as a writer.

There has never been a better time to learn how to do this. Many writers are paying back all the help they had at the start by encouraging and helping newbie authors.

Two websites I recommend are Writers on the Move and Writers and Authors.

Writers on the Move, the brainsite of marketing and promotion expert Karen Cioffi is peopled by a collection of savvy award-winning authors and marketing experts like Carolyn Howard Johnson. The article on her initial Amazon launch is subtitled learning from mistakes.The new edition of The Frugal Book Promoter is now released on Amazon, expanded and updated and full of excellent budget ideas for making the best possible platform for your book sales.

Writers and Authors is edited by Jo Linsdell, a British writer now living with her husband in Italy. Jo is indefatigable when it comes to promotion and I am hoping to welcome her here later in the week on her blog tour celebrating her latest publication Italian for Tourists.

Cast an eye over either or both of these sites and share what you learn that will make a difference to your own brand promotion whether your book is published or still a cherished WIP.

Not to be missed

Writers on The Move November Workshop

Create and sell an Informational Product. A free how-to session on November 18. What could be better than that?

Low-cost workshop packages will be available for this and past workshop packages are listed on the site.

Punctuation and Motivation

2011-09-22T07:30:00.000-07:00

Wednesday's Wicked Websites

Okay so it's no longer Wednesday but I always said I was a slow writer. You can see, thanks to thinking about the Kaizen Plan, I am getting steadier. Two posts in one week, whew!

Today's websites are not motivational in the sense of asking you to do anything about your mindset. I wouldn't dream of it.

They are motivational in that they consist of short actions which sound like fun and which could be used with promotional material.
I'm early for the first one to give you a fair chance to have entries in by closing date.

International Punctuation Day

Officially it's the Eighth National Punctuation Day tomorrow but it's now pretty international with entries last year coming from all over the world for their haiku contest.

This year, the competition consists of writing and punctuating a maximum of three sentences. Surely something we can all do. Even I might manage in time.

But, and here's the rub, your three sentence paragraph must include the following thirteen (13) punctuation marks:

apostrophe, brackets, colon, comma, dash, ellipsis, exclamation point, hyphen, parentheses, period, question mark, quotation mark, and semicolon. You may use apunctuation mark more than once.

As of yesterday there were already 108 entries received. You can check out the correct usage of each of the marks on the site or leave a question at Happy Editing.

Entries to Jeff (at) NationalPunctuationDay (dot) com through September 30

Promo idea

If you're now worn out playing with punctuation Ps and Qs and need to recharge creatively, lots of sites now offer you the chance to make free banners.

I've been thinking up headers for my new website but on the way made lots of small banners and icons for sites like FaceBook and Twitter.

Happy Editing

Google offers a great array of promotional sites but my favourite was Banner Fans. I found it straightforward, easy to understand and it did not ask me to reveal all my personal details to register. Hurrah. I can see from this that the size need tweaking and my second line needs some height re-adjustment .That is easily done if you've saved the original information you selected.

Doing this online means registering your details. I used the old-fashioned method of pen and paper.

Twitter URLs

I'm often asked how to post short URLs in Twitter. I cheat. Twitter itself will shorten a URL so that you don't use up too many characters. If I'm retweeting, I just use the link and the link shortener already provided.

Lengthier answers and links can be found in the guide from About.com

Again check carefully to ensure any outside site you use to help shorten the links is safe.

I need to talk. I'm a fan of Web of Trust. Just flagged it up quickly intending to recommend it and my computer flagged up the dire warning: "This site is deemed to be unsafe." LOL

Motivate Your Monday

2011-09-19T05:15:00.000-07:00

What Motivates You?

Slow writers are apt to have far too much time to think. Eyes glazed over, we languish from a surfeit of blogs, an overload of information.

We haven't finished our book, We have nothing to promote but ourselves and we're fast losing confidence in doing that.

Recognize the scenario? You need to get your work out there. You need to know someone else appreciates what you do.

Motivational Ideas: First Steps First

As a suggestion for rethinking your life, try The Kaizen Plan. The word is Japanese and embodies the concept of continuous improvement through taking small steps--perhaps only a ten minute change daily to help you focus on and achieve your goals, whatever these may be.

Although I've used one of the writing links, you can scroll down the righthand side menu under categories and start from week 0 if you like.

Interesting as a displacement activity, the plan consists of some worthwhile ideas to keep you on track. Stop beating yourself up about the goals you haven't achieved. Think of the ten-minute steps you can take to boost your output starting now.

Writing Contests

Writing contests are a good source of ideas as well as a motivator to speed up your writing. No use planning on doing one in three years' time. Bit the bullet. Get started and enter for something now. At worst, you will have one piece of work completed. At best, you may earn yourself a useful critique or even a following.

Two competitions closing soon are The Writers' Village Autumn Award 2011, closing date September 30, and two Wattpad contests with same closing date and, while you're on that page, check out the Watty awards. Maybe a bit late to gather a fan club by the Round One closing date but this is one you could be starting early for next year.

Always read past winning entries too, to give yourself a flavour of the writing that does well in the particular contest you decide to enter.

If you're really after a displacement activity try the Writing Contests page at Manuscript Editing dot com. Keep you busy for months.

Help Market Other Authors with your Blog

If you're finding it difficult to motivate yourself when it comes to blogging, have a look at a couple of authors who might just tempt you to write another post or two.

I mentioned Terri Main's website and blog last week but her offer still stands and it really is worth making the effort for this one.

Email her with "Free Book" in the subject line to receive a free e-copy of her Creative Calisthenics workbook, worth five dollars as well as an anthology of Carolyn Masters' Mysteries called Lunar Calendar. It includes one story never before published introducing a pintsized genius and a robotic cat, an exclusive excerpt from Dark Side of the Moon, and a $20 pre-launch discount on premium upgrades to courses offered on the new EducationWantsToBeFree website.

Her blog posts give a flavour of the book and it seems more than probable that her ideas, as promised, will start your imagination working overtime.

New to me was author Scott Nicholson's marketing technique.

Promote his books this month and earn gift cards, freebies, and other great prizes! He says he'll be giving away 15 percent of his ebook income in September as a thanks to readers and bloggers who spread the word about his books. His initial dollar giveaway for week one has ended. Now the giveaways are all on the sites listed in his main blog.

Interesting idea. And it looks like it's making him sales.

Let me know if you find anything new to do after reading this. The Kaizen Plan is so far working for me. After all, what's ten minutes every day if it helps you crack on with something new?

Focus

2011-09-14T04:44:00.000-07:00

I never really understood about focus. I focus on on everything I do, everything I read, everyone I meet, every tweet I scan. In fact, it can be quite hard to live with all that focusing. LOL

Shifting from task to task, jumping to tackle the most urgent, the latest deadline, to sympathise with the neediest friend, to manage the day without lying awake most of the night to plan the next...and in the end, always that feeling of running behind the action.

I was rooted behind my computer, feet fixed in the debris of research notes, reference books, discarded prinouts when I realised I was worn out and going nowhere fast.

Every week I have a great idea for a blogpost--and never write it. Every week I check to download the latest version of Scrivener, reread my novel notes--and put them on hold. Every week I intend to do three Pilates sessions--enough said.

Slow and steady? Slow and going nowhere more like.

It has taken a four day enforced break from Internet communications to find out what focus really means. I again have time in the day for family, pets and housework (not so keen on that.) I know what I'm doing (too much but that's what suits me.)

I have a plan

The Prosperity Plan

Fear not. This is not another get-rich-impossibly-quick scheme. I'm after emotional prosperity. Finding the time to do what I love to do as well as working and being happy with family, friends and pets.

It has taken time but I have found, I think, where my true focus of writing interest lies.

So on Wednesdays I shall be reviewing three wicked new or new-to-me websites . That stops me feeling so guilty about all the web-surfing I do instead of writing.

On Fridays, to tie in with Twitter's #fridayreads, I shall review three books I'm reading or that you'd like me to read. Crits will be my opinion only but given honestly and to the best of my ability. I truly believe we can learn from everything we read and everything read informs and creates a better writer.

My Motivational Mondays will be a mix of everything and anything of writing interest I have picked up in the week. So without more ado:

Wednesday's Wicked Websites

Education Wants to be Free

I like the layout and ethos of this blog. The main site is not yet totally up and running but the blog is full of helpful and motivational ideas. Terri Main is a dedicated teacher and a great writer.

Until November 30 she is offering a free e-copy of her acclaimed Creative Callisthenics : The Ultimate Workout for the Writer's Imagination, an anthology of Carolyn Masters Mysteries and a pre-launch discount for her new Education Wants to be Free website. Well worth bookmarking for ideas and help.

Karen Cote

Warning: Karen does write naughty-but-nice romantic suspense (her new book out in October is entitled Erotic Deception) and she is with Museit Hot publishing so you may need to pick and choose what you visit on this site.I have chosen it for its innovative features and for being a great example of fitness for purpose.

The colour, the talking avatars may not suit everyone but they're a great example of what can be done to make your site individual to you and accessible to more visitors. She has podcast interviews with award-winning authors like Brenda Novak and Holly Lisle and hosts the Writers Pen for Charity Lounge.

This week it features Nancy Bell and Laurel's Miracle--a YA being sold with donations to horse charity Dare to Dream.

Krista D Ball

Again an innovative layout and Krista always has something to say that needs to be said. I've chosen an older post from this week which has resounded with her writer-readers and spookily enough she has also been taking stock of her year so far.

A good example to follow when it comes to planning, writing and marketing,

Is it the onset of autumn or the start of a new term that has us all mulling over the dreaded phrase from past report books: " Needs to focus. Must do better."?

Dark Side of the Moon: a cozy mystery set in Space.

Regency comes face to face with scifi

MuseItUpPublishing Top Ten seller

Some Figures of Speech

2011-07-10T07:42:00.000-07:00

Figures of Speech

As promised in my Muse It Up Publishing blog entry during the free June blog festival, I have started to collect together definitiong and examples of figures of speech which can enliven your writing.

Figures of speech are patterns we use every day colloquially but often do not realize that they can be defined by a technical term.

This first set covers well known examples from Alliteration to Euphemism and I am presenting them as a Powerpoint presentation.

Trying to embed this in Blogger is a first for me so fingers crossed it works. If it does work, I shall write a second post tomorrow letting you know of all my efforts trying (and failing) to do this again and again and again. Robert the Bruce has nothing on me when it comes to persistence with the battle against computer tech.

Touch wood --here is the long-awaited presentation on Figures of Speech A-E.

If you click on the box to the right of the slide numbers, you can open the presentation in a new screen and slow it down by clicking on each slide so that it moves at your pace until I manage to slow down the automatic one LOL.

I'd love to see your take on some of these. Please leave me an example or two of your favourite figures of speech which I'll use with acknowledgments in the next set of slides. Hopefully it won't take me two days to figure it out next time. :-)

Resources for Steady Writers

2011-05-27T07:05:00.000-07:00

Resources to Motivate

Websites and Blogs

Whenever life overtakes us or inspiration dries up, it is always handy to access little treats and outside motivation. Choose a cyber writing circle or a real life one in your region. But don't throw all your eggs into the basket or you may find they smash. Go cautiously to get the feel of the group. Are there writers working in your genre?

No use choosing a highbrow literary circle whose authors have neither patience nor understanding to encourage a wannabe romance author. No use joining a website where sci-fi buffs spend their time discussing light years and g-forces when you want to know about police procedure in Alaska.

Some webcircles, like some writers' groups chat too much, others are hypercritical. Some websites over-promote their webwares without giving much helful advice in return. Shop around for one to motivate you. Let me know about your favourites and we'll list them here to help others.

e-freebies

My favourite Friday blog is C J Lyons' Marketing with Heart. She's wonderfully generous with her advice and help (look up the Mentoring Mondays) and the Friday freestuff always flags up something to make you smile and think. A great writer and a great lady.

Another author very generous with time, help and advice is Candy Havens. She is running a high powered writing workshop starting this weekend but also has incredible useful and thorough free writing workshops hosted by herself and guest authors throughout the year.

I'm a fan of Savvy Authors who have groups to cater for all genres and all writers from newbies to best sellers. Without their bootcamps, I'd probably get nothing at all written during the year. Even although I only managed half of this May's bootcamp, I still have 12,000 more words and some great ideas for novel two in my proposed series.

You get the chance here to pitch to publishers and more advice than you will ever be able to absorb. Good stuff.

And of course, there's everything that comes out of the Muse Online Writers' Conference. Remember to register in time for the 2011 free online conference. Invaluable for meeting like-minded writers, editors and publishers and attending workshops and live chats.

Books and e-books

This week I downloaded Marg McAlister's Self Editing for Writers mini course while signing up on her new Writing4Success tipsheet link. The tipsheets are a source of intelligent recommendations on technical aspects of fiction writing and you can access them in her archives too.

On the Evan Marshall site Write a Novel Fast I found ten tips for writing and publishing a romance novel and also under the Writing Resouces tab a free writing fiction ebook (My thanks to Cheryl Wright of Writer2Writer for the heads up on that one.)

Writer2Writer is a compendium of resources which finishes consistently in the Top Ten of Preditor and Editor's polls.

Over To You

So many websites, so little time. I have barely touched on the sites which have been so useful for me in the past. As the web grows exponentially year by year, catching up with everything useful becomes impossible. It's been a long time since the era when a Renaissance man could perhaps know everything.

I'd love to hear from you with your favourite and most useful writing resources and sites.

PS How did I manage to forget Scrivener? How did I ever live without it LOL

New Year, New Start

2011-01-01T15:12:00.000-08:00

Editing Deadlines

Editing by its very nature needs deadlines. Nothing is ever perfect, it can only be as perfect as we can make it. The temptation is to tinker with every manuscript for as long as possible in the hope of tracking down every error, every weakness.

Yesterday, when I said No Goals, I meant it. Today I realised the depth of my hypocrisy. Okay, I have not cheated and made goals. My goals have been made for me. I have two, maybe three books to be edited by the end of the month. I am part of a team. This is my job. I hardly think of this as a target.

But when it comes to editing my own novels, languishing unloved in folders, cupboards and under desks, I set goals and fail to keep them time after time.

Editpalooza

This month I am also very proud to be one of the guest editors at Savvy Authors, where almost one hundred authors have signed up for a month-long intensive editing session.

Here I am promoting slow and steady writing, and I'm helping authors whoosh through their novel editing in four short weeks? Well,yes. Sometimes we can agonise for far too long when what we really need to do is step back, take a long hard look at what is there and see through the reader's rather than the writer's eye.

What is important is the book as a whole--nitpicking does nothing toward developing a cohesive book with a strong theme.

Learn from Mistakes

Authors who do not take risks and make mistakes also miss the chance to learn and develop. Editors learn from their mistakes too.

Most writers have favourite words and phrases that soon become overworked. Weak verbs like feel, seem, be are useful but when overworked do not add to the narrative strength of a story.

Using then as an adverb or conjunction in every paragraph starts to annoy a reader. Starting every sentence with he or she soon becomes boring. Beginning every sentence in a paragraph with an -ing word, as I have done here, is also a no-no.

It is hard for an outside editor to sort these structure faults in one pass. In my early days as an editor, I used to try. After one author changed 498 appearances of she sighed to she breathed deeply, I

realised I needed to give clearer directions in my edits.

Celebrate Your Writing Achievement

2010-12-31T05:12:00.000-08:00

Give Goals a Rest

The end of the year and throughout the land writers are loudly wailing, gnashing teeth and resolving."I must write more, I must write better."

Slow and steady writers look gloomily at blogposts charting resolutions and goals listed by superwriters with flying fingers and no need of sleep.

Whether you're making New Year Resolutions or SMART goals (Smart, Attainable, Realistic, Measurable, Time-based), just stop for a day and think.

What is the point of beating yourself up about everything you failed to achieve and may well not achieve again, New Year or not?

Hope springs up like the phoenix on day one of the New Year. But remember the anguish and gradual slide into apathy, knowing that your word count per month hardly equals Wonder Writer's word count per hour.

That slot on the NY Times best seller lists is as far away as ever. No agent or publisher is clamouring for your brilliant novel.

Instead of racking your brains to list goals that don't look too trivial, take the day to list all your achievements for 2010.

List Your Achievements:

List all your achievements even if they're negative: I did not kill Uncle Arnie when he said the turkey was too dry.

Change your negatives to positives: I did not write 250 words a day becomes In November I wrote 1000 words or two blogposts or...

Now divide your achievements into writing successes and personal successes (In July I lost weight--no matter if like me you put it all back on again).

Now put your feet up, read through your list and stop bullying yourself to do better. It's bad for the character.

Pat yourself on the back. Celebrate every achievement of 2010.

New Year Resolution

Enjoy every moment of 2011. Remember, everything that goes wrong will make a great story one day.

Happy New Writing Year

Killer Valentine Ball--From Non-fiction Writer to Successful Author

2010-11-19T12:33:00.000-08:00

MuseItUpPublishing

November is the spookiest month--partly a hangover from the mystic terror of Hallowe'en, partly the weather. The "season of mists and mellow fruitfulness" disintegrates into a time of ghoulies and gales while the dark nights engender primitive fears and fantastic imaginings.

If you enjoy the pleasurable terrors of curling up in front of a roaring fire with a chilling horror story, C.A.Verstraete is an author who takes frightening to the nth degree. She describes her latest book Killer Valentine Ball, newly released by Muse It Up Publishing as "horror with a macabre sense of humor."

Praised by inspirational blogger and book reviewer J. Aday Kennedy, this is a short story which will appeal to teenagers and adults alike.

A journalist turned fiction writer, Christine is used to writing every day.

"It's a habit." she says. "Don't wait for a muse. Just put butt to chair, fingers to keys, and start typing. Something will happen, words will appear. It can be magical. Enjoy it."

That's all very well but as a journalist and features writer myself, I know that there's a great difference not only in the type of writing needed to produce fiction but also in the self discipline. Christine's article explains it well and she uses her experience to motivate and encourage those of us who are slow and sometimes not-so-steady writers. Over to you, Christine.

Making the Switch from Nonfiction to Fiction

Christine Verstraete

Being trained in journalism is a good thing for writing nonfiction, but it can be a bad habit to overcome when it comes to writing fiction. Yes, I had an advantage in terms of knowing sentence structure, grammar, etc, but fiction has its own style.

Early writing partners will attest to my complaints that I just didn't get it. I didn't think I could make the transition. I don't know why. As I mostly wrote for newspapers, I was used to "just the facts." Stringent writing. No exaggeration.

Then one day it clicked.

I practiced. I kept writing even when I read other "better" works that made me want to throw in the towel. I started with short stories and kept writing, going on to completing a children's mystery and an adult mystery.

Sure, I still sometimes struggle. (Who doesn't?) Sure, there are still authors far better than I am, whom I read for enjoyment and to look at their writing style.

Look around and you'll always find someone thinner, richer, better looking, more talented, etc. So? The bottom line: you can't let surroundings, outside criticism, self-doubt or anything else stop you from reaching your goal.

That's the real lesson I learned in transitioning from one writing genre to another: just keep writing.

Making the transition and finding your own writing "voice," does come over time. Yes, some writers have quick successes. Some take longer to peak or like me, are "late bloomers."

That's okay. Writing is not a race. There isn't a timetable. You can start at any age. The only requirement: keep going. Be the Energizer Bunny. Write until you sign The End. Write and submit until someone says yes, then start all over again.
****
Thank you so much Christine for visiting Slow and Steady Writers. I have thoroughly enjoyed both your book and your visit. Looking forward to catching up with more of your work especially your children's mystery

Searching for a Starry Night, A Miniature Art Mystery, which was #1 on Kindle for Miniatures books and a 2009 EPPIE Award finalist for best YA/children's ebook by the Epic Foundation.

Find out more about C.A.Verstraete

For more information about Christine, her writing and a story excerpt, visit the first stop on her blog tour with Nancy Famolari

And don't miss the great fun interview with Ron Berry on November 16.

Tomorrow she visits author Roseanne Dowell.

And More about Killer Valentine Ball

The Killer Valentine Ball

Author: C. A. Verstraete

Cover Artist: Delilah K. Stephans

Word Count: 3,094

Pages: 15

ISBN: 978-0-9865875-6-6

Price: $0.99

Find it here

Warning: Light gore

And More about Christine

Links

Website: http://cverstraete.com

Blog: http://candidcanine.blogspot.com

Book page

Harvest Moon

2010-10-31T03:26:00.000-07:00

As Hallowe'en approaches, and ties to the spirit world grow stronger, Canadian First Nations Dancing Cat joins us today to share a little of her story.

This is her introduction to the story she tells in the novella Harvest Moon.

As I sat on the bank of the swallow river, the drums pounding in the distance, I asked myself why the ancestors abandoned me. I had always behaved the way my elders taught me. I worked hard, shared with those around me, and never took more from the Earth than what I needed. I listened to my chief and my elders and respected the wisdom that the Spirits offered them. Why, then, would I be called “Cursed One”, never to be a person again?

The crowd in the distance sang and whooped in excitement, rhythmic drums echoing back to my isolated patch of ground. My job during the Gathering consisted of fetching water from the cold stream. Fearful of my presence polluting the festivities and angering the ancestors, several small children were designated to collect the bladders of water from me and run them back to the celebrating people. I could not even bring the water itself.

I was no longer Dancing Cat, messenger of my people. I was Cursed One. I would not experience the opening of the Sacred Bundle and receive guidance.

I looked out and over the endless field of grass opposite of the river and sighed. Someday, I will find a way to deliver myself. Even if I have to call upon death to rescue me.

****

Krista D Ball, author of Harvest Moon, is one of my favourite writers, one you can always rely on to produce a story that is different, a story that keeps you wondering what will happen next.

How did you go about writing this book ?

I’m a partial outliner. I like to write a quick blurb about the main purpose of the book and the outcome. Then, I ask, “What is the risk?” That answer allows for the overall direction of the story. For Harvest Moon, I wrote “discovery” as the risk. In reading Harvest Moon, you’ll find several instances of Dancing Cat’s fear of discovery.

How much research do you do?

As I knew some basic information about First Nations people in Alberta, Canada, I did my research after writing my first draft. If I do it before hand, I find that I include way too much back story and historical information that distracts from the main character’s path. I tweaked their wardrobe, their diet, and the passing months to better match the moon phases.

Do you have any feedback before you submit for publication?

After that stage, it went to a few of my beta readers in my critique group. I made some changes based on the feedback. The largest feedback was the assumption of this being set in the United States and the confusion over a six month winter! Inserting geographical references was the hardest part of writing the story, since Dancing Cat’s world is pre-contact.

After it was all tidied up, Harvest Moon entered the world of submissions and, happily, found a home at MuseItUp Publishing.

To whet your appetite even further, Krista has allowed me to share one further excerpt. Enjoy.

Harvest Moon

Cross-legged, Dancing Cat sat pounding the sun-dried Saskatoon berries between two hand-sized rocks. The stone, her hands, and her buckskin dress all bore the tell-tale signs of berry duty. Streaks of red dye, impossible to clean, striped her clothing and tanned skin. She tried pushing her hair off her cheeks, only to have the sticky residue coating her fingers glue the dark strands in place. The black flies swarmed and buzzed, ready to feast.

She worked in silence as part of the greater circle of twenty women, who chatted as they worked. Dancing Cat had no reason to join in. They only spoke to her to criticize or belittle, never for companionship. The band no longer even called her by name.

Her attention faded away from her work. She stared past the women to catch a glimpse of Eagle Eyes, her brother, mounting his horse. He was only six years older than her and already leading hunting parties, while she sat, docile and obedient, making powdered berries. His gaze caught hers, full of warning. She looked away with the heaviness of her situation pressing against her chest. Dancing Cat pounded her berries harder, trying to crush her own aching loneliness.

“I wish I could ride again,” she mumbled.

Her mother, Crow, glared at her. “I have no patience for you today. We have berries to crush. Shall I remind you why we need them?”

“No,” Dancing Cat said, sullen. They couldn’t start the pemmican cakes without the berries. Without them, they would starve when winter fell. She’d heard the lecture many times before and did not want to hear it again.

“Good. Put aside your childishness and work in silence, Cursed One.”

Dancing Cat swallowed down the slight. She remained silent against the grunts and nods of the other women. She dropped her gaze, making snide, internal comments about how her mother’s black hair no longer resembled a crow’s blue-black feathers. It made her feel better, petty though it was.

Some days, she saw herself as Cursed One instead of her name. But today was not one of those days. Today, she was still the girl who wriggled out of the womb twenty years before and was joyously named Dancing Cat. Today, she hated her duty and silence. But she would do both and would not complain. One day, she would escape into death and be free.

Using a sharp stone, she scraped the mound of berry powder off the buckskin in front of her into the main pile. She dumped several handfuls of the tiny Saskatoon berries back on her ragged buckskin to resume pounding. But not before licking her fingers clean of the tart, feathery residue. No one noticed.

“Creator wills it, the men will bring home a buffalo from the hunt,” Crow said to the other women, who nodded in agreement.

Dancing Cat let her mind wander as the women chatted about the tribe’s need for a buffalo. The herd would move southeast in another moon cycle and so the entire tribe would move with them before the final move into their winter camp. Faded memories of riding ahead of the hunt flashed across her mind; images so foreign that she wondered if they were true anymore.

A chill crept up her spine. The late summer wind had turned cold. She flicked her gaze back to the hunting party. The rest of the men mounted their horses and galloped off to the nearby buffalo herd. She sighed, remembering the freedom of riding. She had been their tribe’s first female messenger. She missed it.

“Cursed One! Pay attention. You are chipping your rock. If I find stone in my cakes this winter, I will take yours and let you go without.” Her grandmother glared at her, her thin lips pursed. “Stop daydreaming.”

Dancing Cat stared at her grandmother, trying to control her tone. “Sorry, Nohkom. I was just…”

“Daydreaming,” Hawk Sight snapped. “We expect you to do your share of work. If you do not, you will be the first to starve this winter.”

Dancing Cat hung her head, fingers trembling from the nauseating mix of anger and fear. She bit back the disrespectful words that boiled inside her. Hawk Sight was not just her maternal grandmother, but also the band healer and an elder. No one would dare speak back to her, let alone the band exile.

She looked up at the several generations of women around her. The nodding heads and smug looks told her that the threat of starvation was real. She pushed her grandmother’s words out of her mind by grinding the berries perfectly between the two flat rocks.

“Remember Stoney?”

Dancing Cat slumped. Hawk Sight never could let things go.

“She thought she could laze around while we women worked. But when we ran out of food that winter, she was the one left to starve. We don’t need lazy women.”

“Yes, Nohkom.”

And on it went for the afternoon, story after miserable story about women who starved to death. It would have been bad enough for just her grandmother to have told the stories. Instead, the others joined in, telling of captured Red Valley, Cree or Inuit wives who had been left to starve when food stores ran low. All at her grandmother’s say. Hawk Sight might have been a great healer, but she was also cold and merciless in Dancing Cat’s opinion.

They told the stories to make her work harder, but it had the opposite effect. Her work slowed. She could not stand up for herself against an entire band, but she could refuse to obey the people who threatened to kill her. If they wanted her to die, then they could starve, too.

Find out more about Harvest Moon

Read further excerpts from this thought provoking novella and learn more about the author on the Muse It Up Publishing website

And watch the trailer Harvest Moon on You Tube, the scenery is staggeringly beautiful and a wonderful backdrop for the story.

Harvest Moon, a 10,000 word paranormal fantasy, first published October 2010, is available from MuseItUpPublishing in PDF, epub, prc, price $2.50

ISBN: 978-0-9865875-0-4

How to Write Better

2010-10-08T14:54:00.000-07:00

The Muse Online Writers' Conference

Practice makes perfect only if you know what and how to practice. That's where writing courses and conferences come in.

Writing itself is in the main a solitary occupation so meeting other writers working in similar genres, and often with similar strains and stresses on their time, is both inspiring and liberating.

Very few of us can afford time and cost of going to many if any of the great conferences around so The Muse Online Writers' Conference, now in its fifth year, is a writing lifeline for thousands.

The brainchild of Canadian author and editor extraordinaire--the great Lea Schizas--it hosts presenters for all genres, pitch sessions to publishing houses, week-long courses on all aspects of writing, publishing and marketing.

Attendees from all over the world pack freezers full of family friendly ready meals, shut themselves up with a computer for a week, and study to improve their manuscripts, start the book they always wanted to write and chat non-stop to like-minded cyberfriends.

It is an ideal annual venue for slow and steady writers who make lasting writing friends, rejoice in the successes achieved over the past year and commiserate on the inevitable rejections. Each year hundreds of us say, "It will be me pitching next year."

I am getting nearer--as back up moderator for pitches to Vivian Zabel of 4RV Publishing, Marlene Satter of Double Dragon, Caryn Wiseman of the Andrea Brown Literary Agency, White Rose Publishing, the MacGregor Literary Agency, Sara Megibow from the Nelson Literary Agency, Lida Quillen of Twilight Times and Paladin Timeless.

My romantic suspense novel may be creeping through first draft but I am preparing for the day next year when I pitch my own work.

4RV Publishing
Double Dragon
Andrea Brown Agency
White Rose Publishing
MacGregor Literary Agency
Nelson Literary Agency
Twilight Times
Paladin Timeless
and of course
MuseItUpPublishing

Why Read Sci-Fi

2010-09-15T13:34:00.000-07:00

Why Read Sci-Fi?

Why would a fan of romance and mystery genres ever read sci-fi? What can we learn from sci-fi authors? After all, their stories are mainly set in the future. They're totally imaginary, made-up, pulled out of the air--a literary conjuring trick. Or are they?

As an editor, I have had to think again. The science fiction authors whose books appear on the Muse It Up Publishing list have totally impressed me through attention to detail in writing and plotting, the accuracy of their knowledge and their determination to be ahead of the game by predicting the lifestyle in their future worlds.

The characters know all about the latest research trends this century. Their authors incorporate a hearty helping of scientific fact into their fictional plots.

Muse It Up Publishing

World View

When sci-fi authors write that the distance from the earth to the moon is 384000 kilometers or that a new moon dweller is acclimatising to gravity at 1/2 g, they know where to go to have the figures corroborated. Terri Main, author of Dark Side of the Moon, a book that combines sci-fi with the all-time favourite cozy mystery genre, had me looking up and learning about g-forces on the NASA website.

A book like Dark Side of the Moon appeals to any reader who enjoys painless learning through reading fiction. Its world is a totally credible extension of the world as we know it today. The science is accurate and the mystery as intriguing as an Agatha Christie best seller.

Yes, readers are suspending disbelief to "live" in this imaginary world but it is a world view they cannot fault.

Lessons from sci-fi writers

Lesson One:
All too often, a factual error or an improbable location can stop readers enjoying a story. No use having a big game hunter hero killing elephants in London to save the heroine if the writer hasn’t given a credible basis for the animals’ appearance and stampede through town.

Knowing the size of the beasts in comparison to the Houses of Parliament could add to the realism of the reader experience. I’m not advocating bogging your story down with boring detail. But an odd and unusual fact can work wonders to improve the credibility of your fictional world.

Lesson Two:
Know your readers.

Let’s face it—it is probably not a good idea to have a hero who kills wild animals at all unless he repents and founds a sanctuary for endangered species as a result of the heroine’s persuasive skills.Today’s romance readers are more likely to support conservation causes.

Sci-fi authors have a committed following. They know exactly what their readers like and don’t like to read. They don’t follow convention slavishly but they do keep ahead of the game in their own reading and research to avoid being caught out in inaccuracies.

Keep up-to-date with your reading and make sure to keep your characters in tune with their world.

Lesson Three:
Be adventurous when it comes to developing your genre. Anyone can be a sleuth in your cozy mystery—even a werewolf. Your heroine can be any age, any shape, any nationality. Your hero can have flaws—please add a little reality to the fiction LOL

Sci-fi authors like Krista D. Ball delight in standing stereotypes on their heads. It’s great fun and worth trying especially when you come to one of those dreaded sticky patches mid-novel.

Haibun anybody?

2010-08-26T00:43:00.000-07:00

Looking for something new to kick off your creativity? As a cure for procrastination or writer’s block try Haibun. Haibun is the mixture of prose and haiku first featured in Japan through the travel writing and meditations of a 17^th century monk.

Since then, writers have found the haibun ideal for sharing thoughts and meditation, and for travel writing, autobiography and biography, descriptive and historical narrative.

Haiku is the Japanese poetry form now familiar to most poets and school children. It consists of three lines: one of five syllables, the second of seven syllables, and the third and last of five syllables. It is popular because it is fun to write in such well-defined disciplined way.

Haiku can start, end or indeed appear anywhere in the midst of a prose passage to intensify or give added depth to its meaning.

MuseItUp Publishing

Winter's Soul

Patricia Harrington, an award-winning mystery writer, has taken the haibun one step further in her Gothic romance/suspense novella Winter’s Soul. Each section is prefaced by a haiku to entice the reader deeper into the story—a simple but most effective stylistic pattern.

Winter’s Soul is the tale of an unusual ménage à trios, set in 1930s England. A mood piece, it proves the haibun ideal for building suspense and dramatic tension.

Haibun explained

In a hurry to find out more about the haibun and glean ideas before the book , published by Muse It Up Publishing, comes out later this year? Try the useful links provided by Ray Rasmussen, the poet who has both led and followed the evolution of the form in contemporary English writing.

Using the haibun

I like the idea of using it for journaling or in my Morning Pages which I write at any time during the day to clear my head and to start covering the blank whiteness of that terrifyingly empty page.

Internet Time Check

2010-08-09T01:05:00.000-07:00

Lost my internet connection this morning—the worst thing that could have happened.

One of my authors is missing. At the point of returning edits, waiting for other deadline edits to arrive for checking and expecting a vital email from the publisher, I am cut off from the outside world.

Ahead of me--a blank screen and aeons of time, time to add up the number of hours I spend on line using the grand old excuse of “working.” It beats counting sheep. The number of times I have woken up with my head banging on the keyboard proves that.

Emails and social networking are part of the job. But perhaps two hours a day is excessive.

I’ve just spent five minutes oohing and aahing over a powerpoint on old age sent by a friend with a never-ending library of brilliantly photographed, philosophical presentations. And then, of course, I had to visit paramotor pilot and photographer George Steinmetz in Arabia's Empty Quarter and muse over the photographs there – all work, all inspiration, all going to the well to recharge energy. So let’s say another hour a day “researching.”

Back to the editing—but I look up every reference, check every grammar point, study all the ins and outs of copyright and trademarks on the Internet. Another four-hour Internet stretch at least. No, I’m not finished. Another two hours late into the night when the family have gone to bed—has anyone written to me? Are there any group messages? Which of the 500 unread emails should I catch up with?

Lost my internet connection this morning—and it’s still lost, thank goodness. I shall finish my edits on time, may even manage week three (correction--month three) of edits on my own poor little WIP.

Green trees frame patches of brilliant blue sky, birds are singing, the swallow babies' flying practice is going well. What am I doing inside, fretting over a lost virtual world when my own world awaits?

No Internet has proved a blessing in disguise to reconnect me to today's reality , real needs--is that really the state of the kitchen floor?

It has also made me realize yet again how lucky I am with this lovely editing job with MuseItUp Publishing where I work with a far-seeing publisher and multiple realities created by so many gifted minds.

First Edits

2010-07-18T14:32:00.000-07:00

Sending off First Edits to an author is always a nerve-racking experience. First Edits by their very nature are a tricky balancing act between suggesting possible changes which might improve a book and insisting on certain changes which are vital to the credibility and coherence of the work as a whole.

These changes can be straightforward: continuity problems when characters forget what they have done in the past, change their eye colour mid-novel, or even change their names half way through.

They can be dialogue-based. Every character speaks with the same voice, uses the same favourite slang word or expression, or the same grammatical constructions.

Often they are to do with the pace of the novel--no hooks at the end of chapters so no tension, too much action and no dialogue so no reader identification with the protagonists.

Sometimes, a writer has a penchant for overusing adjectives or adverbs. I have just been reading Janie Franz's Edits with LY words which makes a lot of sense.

MuseItUp at Literary Gala

2010-07-18T07:15:00.000-07:00

MuseItUp Publishing made its U.K. debut last month at the Literary Gala held on the Isle of Wight in aid of SSAFA Forces Help.

The Soldiers,Sailors, Airmen and Families Association this year celebrates the 125th anniversary of its founding and the Gala was held at Woodlands Vale, former home of Admiral Lord Calthorpe, a senior admiral at the time of the First World War.

Renowned for its literary connections as well as the famous pop festival of 1970, the Isle of Wight was home to famous writers from Dickens to Darwin, poets like Keats, Swinburne and Tennyson as well as Karl Marx and Queen Victoria.

But the most popular poet to spend time on the Island was perhaps Henry Wadsworth Longfellow whose poem Hiawatha (1855) celebrated the native American lifestyle. So MuseItUp's invitation to the Gala was particularly appropriate as one of our first books to come off the metaphorical presses will be Harvest Moon,the native American inspired paranormal fantasy by Krista D. Ball.

Paul Armfield at Woodlands Vale

MuseItUp editor Anne Duguid brought the audience up to date with the growing market for ebooks and epublishing while Paul Armfield, songwriter, nusician and manager of Waterstone's bookstore on the Isle of Wight demonstrated the benefits and advantages of the latest e-readers.

The Gala raised £1000 for SSAFA.

Nettle Experiments (1)

2010-04-24T05:48:00.000-07:00

The garden is full of nettles, all shapes and sizes. One consolation is that they signify a fertile soil. The other is that nettles are good for you.

My first nettle experiment was making nettle tea. Instructions are easy to find all over the web from You Tube to environmental blogs.

Best time for picking is in early spring April to June at the very latest because then the shoots toughen up.

I learned:

to wear gloves
to avoid the leaf edges because they're the bits that sting
to choose new top shoots only.
to wash my nettle tips in a basin of water as soon as I got them home. That stops them stinging
not to collect too many at a time. (Partners are surprisingly fractious when they come home to a fridge full of nettles when they're looking for a simple snack)
to fill a family teapot with washed nettle tips and fill the pot with boiling water.
the longer the brew stands, the stronger it is.

My first attempts were slightly weak but better if you don't like the stronger vegetably taste.
Any spare nettle tea, I strain into a jar with a lid. I can then supply myself with tea all day long by filling a mug and heating it for a minute in the microwave.

So what has this to do with writing?

Obviously it is another string for a character's bow. Environmental characters will be in vogue for some time to come. Even if you hate the tea, you will be able to give a convincing description of the pain a stinging nettle can inflict or the taste that drives another character to use his tea to water his great-aunt's aspidistra.

And that, of course, will, in the end, endear him to the old lady who leaves him her fortune because it is an excellent fertiliser which grows an aspidistra as flourishing as Jack's beanstalk.

The other benefit could be to give more zip to you and your writing. The nettle is full of health-giving properties. Drinking three cups of nettle tea a day for the past five days has certainly boosted my energy and enthusiasm for life.

Try it and let me know.

Harvest Moon

2010-04-23T03:37:00.000-07:00

Harvest Moon by Krista D Ball is out in October, 2010 and available from Muse It Up Publishing. The cover design by DK Renders is, for me, as magical as the story.

My love of native American culture started as a child reading about Hiawatha, Pocahontas and John Smith, and continued through Tony Hillerman's wonderful detective series.

Jim Thunder, who inspired Krista to write this, was himself renowned for his story telling. He made headlines twenty-one years ago when, as the result of a dream, he ran 4400 kilometres through ice and snow to New York in a bid to retrieve the Cree tribe's sacred bundle.

Krista's novella is based on traditions of the Canadian First Nations.

It's not yet time for the Harvest Moon but I have been doing a bit of spring harvesting of my own.

At this time of year, my garden is frantically growing nettles so I decided to try my hand at making nettle tea and graduated into experimenting with nettle soup.

I like to think that in this way I am, like the original members of the Canadian First Nations, returning to the land the respect which it is due.

On her blog, learn more about Jim Thunder and read Krista's moving tribute to the man to whom this book is dedicated.

Content Editor -- The Ideal Job for a Writer?

2010-04-07T10:31:00.000-07:00

Language learners need to listen before they can talk well. Writers need to read. My new job as content editor for Muse It Up Publishing--and I can hardly believe my luck in being chosen for it -- means not only can I read for days on end, I can even call it work :-)

As a subeditor on various British newspapers, I am an experienced copy editor, checking for punctuation, spelling and grammar mistakes. It's a bit like teaching -- if I see too many repetitive mistakes, I start to doubt my own accuracy. And if you're thinking of editing, remember that nowadays we have to move confidently between US English, Canadian English and the standard UK spelling and grammar.

For more information on the various forms of editing, try Hadley Raydeen's excellent article on the editing jobs in publishing,

A content editor wields a broader brush.

How to Revise Your Novel --new review

2010-01-09T14:35:00.000-08:00

My Christmas present to me was Holly Lisle's latest course : How to Revise Your Novel.

Learn how to revise your novel.
Get the novel you WANT
From the novel you HAVE.
Find out more

It was too tempting to resist.

If I could get even half way towards the novel I wanted from the novel I had, I would be delighted. The book I want to save, working title Dangerous Decisions, has been languishing in limbo for two years.

I decided to make a dangerous decision of my own to see if I could salvage something from the hours and hours invested in this and previous flawed nanowrimo novels and because Holly promised no pressure. She also seemed to know and understand how mind-numbingly dreadful revision is for someone like me.

Another reason I chose this course is that I can take it at my own pace -- I won't be dropping out because I can't keep up.

I hate revision with a passion --I tie myself and my story into Gordian knots you'd need a steel scimitar to slice through and end up with the whole thing in scrappy little knotted strings of plot that can never be woven together again.

I spent a few weeks worrying about whether I had the nerve to start on week one while my fellow students were racing through their worksheets and baying for more.

But so far --and remember I am still on week one working through a chapter a day --the Holly Lisle system is a revelation.

My first drafts -- and I have five languishing -- are all chaotic. I repeat myself, I have plot holes a jumbo jet could disappear into, and at some point -- usually around chapter ten -- I lose the plot completely. All efforts at revision in the past have left me hating the book and burying it under the desk.

Now I can homestly say I rather like this book again, I can see order emerging from the chaos, some people I enjoy and some that need a bit more backbone. All may not be wasted.

Thanks to Holly Lisle and the enthusiastic companionship of my fellow students.

Looping The String

2009-11-29T04:57:00.000-08:00

Start as you mean to go on. That means not feeling guilty when life -- or laziness -- gets in the way of writing. Tell yourself you are nurturing your idea -- giving it a chance to develop unimpeded by a corset of restricted time.

Do the dishes and think about your characters --talk to them as you scour the pots.

Mop the floor and visualise your heroine mopping floors or interrogating suspects or falling under the wheels of a milkfloat. How does it happen? What do you see? hear? feel?

Maybe you play out a scene that does not fit into your story outline. Write it anyway -- or at least dictate it to a recorder. Most computers nowadays allow you to record using a microphone.

So you have to learn how to do that?

That's what I call looping the string. You give yourself permission to stop the frenetic flurry of words you pound out to achieve an arbitrary word target. You allow yourself to learn a new technique, take up a new interest . Everything is grist to a writer's mill.

A how-to article on recording your voice on computer may sell to a writing ezine or on an article content site. Learn something useful and pass it on. Start publicising yourself as a writer.

Let one of your book characters follow the same learning curve --add another element to the novel in progress. Alternatively file the idea for a future book.

Always remember readers love to be entertained but they also love to learn something new in an entertaining fashion.

The more loops you have in your string, the more enticing your work becomes.

So never feel guilty about time out from writing. Some good will always come of it if you look in the right direction.

Long String Author

2009-11-27T03:01:00.000-08:00

How long does it take to write a book?

How long is a piece of string?

Floundering for years trying to teep up with Book in a Month schemes, reduced to a wreck by competitive friends annually hitting the November Nanowrimo 50,000 words novel target, I have at last realised this is not for me.

Hurrah, my life is now my own. I am in control. No longer in thrall to an excessive daily word count, I shall have time for work, housekeeping, family, friends -- and not in that order. Since when did housekeeping ever loom large in my vocabulary?

I am a longstring author, relieved of all the pressures and guilt caused by setting impossible targets.

As a journalist, I was always a deadline junkie. I write best under pressure. And at the start of my bookish aspirations, I needed to set daily or weekly targets. I needed to think I could complete a book in 30 days or less . A year seemed far too long to invest in one project.

I would be bored. I wanted to see a resuilt. I wanted to hold my book in my hand. Time was ticking on. I could be dead in a year.

I had not taken into account the steep learning curve needed to write a novel or non-fiction book. I read books all the time. What else was there to know?

Quite a lot, actually.

I have now written four manuscripts, all completed, all of which I am heartily ashamed of.

Would I read them?

Yes -- but then I read anything from marmalade labels at breakfast to dire student essays on Lady Macbeth that would leave her demoralised beyond redemption if she only knew.

Would I ask a friend to read my manuscripts? Never.

So why can't I get it right?

I have at last realised that when I wrote to deadlines, I had collected the material, mulled it over and had an angle I knew was right for that particu;lar story. It was an instant snapshot of a situation.

My fast-baked novels cannot work for that very reason. They are a series of snapshots, not a film. The stories are incoherent, the characters inconsistent.

The answer of course lies in the editing --but why edit over and over for months? I could be taking these months to allow the story to evolve in a more leisurely fashion more suited to the way my brain works.

Yesterday I told myself I was just making notes to remind myself of an idea. ( I am one of those people who talk to themselves and play out whole scenes of dialogue as I do the dishes then promptly forget them or else lose interest.)

I wrote two pages which ungummed my boots from the muddy mire in the middle of book five. I switched off the computer, went to work happy and have stayed happy all day. I don't have to write 2000 words a day or even 1000 words a day. I just have to write something that helps my story along.

I may find myself thinking about my book every day but I don't have to switch on my computer every day.

I have to do the living too or else my characters end up as bookish caricatures who have no place in my world or anyone else's.