Any NaNos out there? There is still time to sign up!
This will be my eighth year, and every year I wonder if I can do it. So far I have managed seven years out of the eight. My NaNo name is Paula1849 if you want to connect on the NaNoWriMo site.
If you like to track your word count, you will need 1667 words today. So far I have 739. Whoops.
Good luck!
Paula
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I have noticed that there seem to be a lot more authors mixing genres. Just check on the Amazon subcategories when you try and upload your book! I think it is a good thing, that increases creativity. Steven Pressfield explains why combining genres can be a good thing, and he is using one of my favorite movies The Big Lebowski.
By STEVEN PRESSFIELD | Published: JULY 6, 2016
We were talking last week about The Big Lebowski being a film in the Private Eye genre. But what really makes Lebowski so inventive and so interesting is it’s a mixedgenre. It’s a Slacker/Stoner tale (like Dazed and Confused, Go, Clerks, or any Cheech and Chong movie) conceived, structured, and executed as a Detective Story.
What does this mean for you and me as writers?
It means that mixing genres is one of the most canny and fun tricks we can pull to come up with something new and fresh and exciting.
Mix the Private Detective genre with Sci-Fi and you get Blade Runner.
Combine it with a Geezer Pic and you get The Late Show, starring Art Carney and Lily Tomlin.
Blend it with historical fiction and you get The Name of the Rose.
But let’s dig a little deeper into The Big Lebowski. The concept of the film is this:
Let’s tell a story that hits all the beats [conventions] of a Sam Spade/Philip Marlowe Private Eye Story, but instead of having a hard-bitten detective as the hero we’ll have a sweet, lovable stoner.
How does that pay off for the writers, Joel and Ethan Coen? It pays off because this simple creative twist—stoner instead of film-noir private eye—makes every character and line of dialogue feel original and inventive. Each scene gives the filmmakers an angle to make a fresh point about America, about popular culture, about how things have changed in the past generation or two.
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My favorite part of writing is the beginning. I love the excitement of putting down a new story! But once the basic story outline is done and I need to fill in the details, it becomes more difficult to find that excitement. At Live Write Thrive, C.S. Lakin shares how to tap into that excitement every time.
July 6, 2016
Let’s say you have a great idea for an article, blog post, short story, or novel. You’ve brainstormed your main points and you feel the topic is fresh and interesting.
After a bit of work, you come to the moment when you are ready to write. You hope to infuse that initial excitement about your idea into your writing, but when you get down to the nuts and bolts of actually putting the idea down on paper (or typed into your Word document), it seems to fall flat.
You know it’s not the idea that’s the problem. Nor is it your writing ability; you have the chops to write well. So what’s the problem?
Sometimes that transition from idea to execution causes problems. At times the story seems to be hovering over some lost horizon. You could be wandering a bit lost, and as the cliché goes: you can’t see the forest for the trees. And if you are working on something as enormous as a novel, it can seem like a huge forest with so many trees (elements) that your vision can get muddled and your eyes tired from trying to “see the big picture” all the time.
Kahlil Gibran said in his famous book The Prophet that “thought is a bird of space, that in a cage of words may indeed unfold its wings but cannot fly.” I memorized that line more than forty years ago because of its profound wisdom. Just how do we get our terrific ideas to “fly” in a cage of words?
We do so by tapping into our passion. Passion for our topic and passion for shaping words.
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Author Tools – things to help you get your writing done
Want to change your price in KDP but struggling? Shelley Hitz has a video to show you how, along with a step by step process.
Are you having difficulty changing the price of your Kindle book on Amazon?
This tutorial will walk you through the simple and easy steps on how to change the price of your kindle book in KDP.
Today, I want to share with you how to change the price of your kindle book in KDP.
Here are the easy and simple steps on how to do it.
Step 1: Log in to your Amazon author account.
You can click on this link and you will be directed to sign in on your account: https://kdp.amazon.com/.
Step 2: Choose the book that you want to lower the price of.
So you simply have to scroll down the page and click on the title of that book that you want to change the price of.
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Not sure what the difference is between a preface, foreword, introduction, or prologue? Over at the BookBaby blog, D
David Leonhardt
Whether it’s a preface, an introduction, a foreword, or a prologue, the text that comes before your first chapter is important for setting the stage for your readers.
Not every book has a preface. That’s OK, because some have an introduction. Or a foreword. Or a prologue. And some have several of these.
Whatever you call it (or them), the text that comes before your first chapter is important for setting the stage for your readers. So let’s take a couple minutes to cover the basics.
Your first question is probably this:
That is exactly the question that was asked, and answered, on Quora. As you can tell, there is no hard and fast definition, although a foreword is typically written by someone other than the author, usually someone well-known and credible. This is a great way to help readers accept that a new writer has something worth reading.
An introduction is usually an explanation of what is in the book. This is ideal for non-fiction books, or for fiction books where the author wants to explain where he’s coming from. It can also let readers know how they will benefit from reading the book. The introduction is not part of the story.
A prologue is generally part of the story, but set apart. It sets the stage by bringing the reader into the story before it begins. Generally, a prologue is used for fiction.
So what is a preface? Well, now, that’s a good question. A preface could be an introduction. Or it could be a prologue. It is whatever you need to set the stage so that the reader can hit the ground running from Chapter 1.
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Just for fun – because everyone deserves a break
Do you Pokemon or know someone who does? Then you will totally enjoy these classic story titles re-imagined as Pokemon titles. Got to collect them all!
07-12-16
Pokemon Go is going wild, y’all. It’s a free smartphone app that dropped on July 6 and uses your GPS to show you the Pokemon that are always around you in the real world (Okay, not really. It’s just a game, people).
When you’re walking around, open the app and you’ll find a Charmander in your kitchen, or a Shellder in your bedroom, or a Jigglypuff in your office at work. Your favorite coffeeshops are turned into Pokestops, your grocery stores are turned into gyms. It’s taking over the world.
And you better believe we Poke-punned a bunch of classics for ya. Sure, there are the obvious ones — Harry Potter and the Pokeball, Pokemon Farm — but… Just, here. We gotta Catch-22 ’em all.
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There are many extras an author needs to appear professional. You may already have some things, such as a website and social media presence. But according to at Bad Redhead Media, you also need a media kit. Find out why you need one and what your media kit should consist of.
July 1, 2016 By Rachel Thompson
Whether you are a multi-published author or in the process of penning your first novel, an author media kit is an essential time-saving tool. Also known as a “press kit,” a media kit is a collection of information pertaining to you, the author, and your book(s).
Why do you need a media kit?
Your author media kit will come in handy when you are reaching out to book bloggers, setting up book tours, contacting event planners, inquiring to publishers and agents, planning online promotions…etc. Imagine having to search through your computer files every time someone requests your author and book information. What a pain! Having it in all together in one doc will cut down on wasted time and let you get back to doing what you love- writing!
(Here’s an example of Rachel’s media kit. We update it frequently.)
Making your media kit available on your website and blog is also a great way for others to easily find information on you and your book. You can add your media kit as an individual page, on the sidebar in a downloadable link – either way, be sure to label it clearly.
What should you include your author media kit?
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I love this post by , first because I am a massive Red Dwarf fan, but also because Jo tells us to go ahead and take some writing chances, break a few rules. Go to Writer Unboxed to see for yourself.
July 2, 2016 By Jo Eberhardt
I grew up on 80s British comedy. (Which possibly explains everything you ever need to know about my writing style.) Yes, Minister taught me about politics. Blackadder taught me about history. Are You Being Served? taught me about… well, lots of things. And Red Dwarf taught me about science fiction.
In fact, Red Dwarf taught me a lot of lessons, and one of the ones I come back to time and time again is from the most feminist episode I’ve ever seen in any TV show ever: ‘Parallel Universe’.
For those of you who haven’t had the pleasure of watching Red Dwarf, the two main characters are Arnold Rimmer, a socially awkward, sexually repressed hologram, and Dave Lister, a slobbish, easygoing lad’s lad whose skills include drinking lager and eating vindaloo spicy enough to melt through plastic. In ‘Parallel Universe’, they’re accidentally transported to a parallel dimension where everything is the same… except that women are the dominant gender. There, they meet their female equivalents who, obviously, try to get them into bed.
Hi-jinks ensue as the boys come to terms with being objectified and, in Lister’s words dealing with women who “think of men in the exact same way [we] think of women…. it’s disgusting.” But my favourite part of the episode is the conversation that takes place about female-Lister’s attempt to seduce male-Lister:
Lister: She tried to impress me by drinking six pints of lager and belching the whole of Yankee Doodle Dandy.
Rimmer: That’s your party piece, isn’t it?
Lister: Yeah, but when I do it, it’s really stylish, man.
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We have talked about having a marketing plan and even a writing plan. Kristen Kieffer thinks we should be looking at it differently, that we need a publishing plan. Head over to She’s Novel to see if you agree.
Hello again, lovely friends! I’m so happy you’re here because I am super pumped to talk about today’s topic.
Like, SUPER pumped y’all. Why? Because I get a wee bit passionate sometimes, especially when it comes to helping you guys avoid major (and unfortunately all too common) writing mistakes. Let me back up a second.
So you can find writing, publishing, and marketing “rules” all over the internet, right? I mean, plenty of them are right here on this site, so I am totally not against the “rules”. But I’m also not *not* against the “rules”. And that’s because the “rules” are often techniques that reflect a pattern of successful fiction.
In other words, the “rules” are usually backed by data, wisdom, and years of experience.
But they’re also not the total sum of every writer’s experience ever. We’re all different, and so while most of us (and most of our stories) can benefit from following classic writing “rules”, there are also the outliers. The marks that fly waaaay off the graph.
Catch my drift?
And so, while I’m 100% positive that this relatively new writing “rule” we’re going to talk about today works for some people, I don’t think it has nearly enough time, research, data, and experience to back it up. What “rule” am I getting at here?
I’ve seen this advice everywhere lately, and I get where it’s coming from. It’s implying two things, really:
A) That it’s going to take time to begin building your readership, so you should start now.
B) That your first published book is unlikely to be your best, so you might as well get it out of the way and start working on the next one.
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In The News – Articles Of Interest For Authors
Good writing also means being a good author. Check out the HuffPo post on how taking care of himself, made Matt Hearnden a better writer.
Updated Jun 29, 2016
Matt Hearnden Human being who writes
(this story first appeared here: The Writing Cooperative)
Andre Iguodala, the 2015 NBA Finals MVP, likes to sleep.
It didn’t always used to be that way though. He used to have terrible sleeping habits. He used to stay up until 4am, watching the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, and only then would he fall into a restless sleep for just a few hours. Then he’d sleep for a few more hours before playing a game in the evening. This was considered a “supplement” to the few hours he’d sleep at night.
Unsurprisingly, he’d end up exhausted during the game. More exhausted than a professional athlete should be.
It was only when he decided that enough was enough – the thing that happens before every big change in our lives – that he sought out a sleep therapist.
It worked. Iguodala experienced a 29% improvement in points per minute, and a 37% decrease in turnovers per game when he slept for 8 hours. Meaning 8 hours in row – not some split of a few hours here and a few hours there.
Another quick stat: players shoot 9.2% better from the 3 point line when they get 10 hours of sleep. For context: a player shooting 35% from the three-point line is an average three-point shooter. A player shooting 44% from the three-point line is an elite three-point shooter. More context: for this NBA season, shooting 44% would’ve made you the 5th most accurate three-point shooter in the NBA. Shooting 35% would’ve made you the 90th most accurate.
More sleep is the difference between average and elite.
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Every author knows that social media is important in the hunt to find readers. But how much time have you been spending on Goodreads? If you are like me, you pop in occasionally when you remember or need to do something. Frances Caballo at Live, Write, Thrive presents her case on why you should spend more of your social media time on Goodreads and the benefits thereof.
July 1, 2016
Today’s post is by social media expert Frances Caballo:
Goodreads has become the most important networking site on the Internet.
—Forbes
Goodreads has a storied beginning. This is how founder and CEO Otis Chandler describes his epiphany to start what has become a powerful online reader resource and social media network:
One afternoon while I was scanning a friend’s bookshelf for ideas, it struck me: when I want to know what books to read, I’d rather turn to a friend than any random person or bestseller list.
So I decided to build a website—a place where I could see my friends’ bookshelves and learn about what they thought of all their books.
And thus in January of 2007, Goodreads began.
As of January 2016, Goodreads had 40 million members and featured 1.3 billion books and 47 million reviews.
What I find interesting is that many Goodreads users attended college, and even more of them attended graduate school. Goodreads members are educated, love to read, and love to talk about books. Women read more and review more books than men and dominate this online venue. While men aren’t as active on this site as women, they still participate and are a growing force here.
Many authors join Goodreads and quickly set up their author dashboards. Then perhaps they want to set up a giveaway. What do they do next? Well, a lot of authors I know then start to neglect Goodreads when the giveaway ends.
Too many writers don’t understand the benefits of maintaining a presence, reviewing books, adding favorite quotes, or joining groups.
Some writers neglect Goodreads to their detriment.
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Author Tools – things to help you get your writing done
at Writer Unboxed, gives us another helpful Scrivener post. Perfect timing for counting up those 50k words for NaNoWriMo!
June 30, 2016 By Gwen Hernandez
2016 has been a busy year. My youngest son graduated from high school, my husband retired from the Air Force, family flew in for the big events, and we recently moved from Boston to Sacramento. By recently, I mean we drove into town on Sunday, and I’m writing this blog post from a hotel room.
This is pretty much the only writing I’ve done since May, but now that we’re waiting to close on a house, I finally have time to get back to my book. (Yay!) Which means new word count goals.
Luckily, Scrivener makes setting goals and tracking progress easy. No math required. Whether you want to see your progress toward a word count target for a manuscript, a writing session, or a single document, Scrivener has you covered.
Setting a Manuscript Target
Here’s how to use Project Targets to set—and track progress toward—your manuscript word count goal. This applies only to text written in documents or folders within the Draft/Manuscript folder.
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Oh some of these examples are really funny. There is one that I have to read with my best William Shatner impression. You will know which one! Rachel Kent at Books and Such shares her expertise on how not to overdo your writing.
I read at least three proposals every week, sometimes more. In many of these proposals, I notice common writing errors, and I’d like to point these out so you can check for them before submitting your work to editors and agents.
One mistake is overwriting. Many authors believe their writing style is what makes their project appeal to readers. This is the case within certain limits. Finding your “voice” and using it effectively is a learned skill. Below are some overwriting examples.
1) The Thesaurus: It’s a really good idea to have a thesaurus on your desk while you’re writing, but don’t overdo it.
“The whyfor for a thesaurus is to ameliorate a skald’s word stock rather than to regurgitate the same jargon.” (Or: A thesaurus is to help you come up with new words rather than using the same words over again.)
If your reader has to pull out a dictionary to figure out what you’re talking about, you’re doing it wrong. Unusual or little-known words should be relatively discernible from the context. Plus, while readers want to understand the subject matter and to read beautiful words and phrases, if reading the book is too difficult, they’ll quit. We all want to be challenged, but we need to be built up at the same time. We want to know that we’re smart enough to read the book in our hands, or we’ll find something else that entertains and encourages us. This applies to nonfiction too. Be careful that your writing doesn’t become too technical if you are trying to write to readers who aren’t experts in the subject matter.
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Who doesn’t want more reviews! The awesome Shelly Hitz has a great way to add a direct link to the Amazon review section of your book, making it oh so easy for readers to review your title.
All authors love to get new reviews on their books in Amazon, right? Reviews give more credibility and social proof to your book.
Therefore, in this post I decided to share with you how to create a direct link on Amazon for book reviewers to post their reviews.
Today I have a question from Paula Moldenhouer. She recently saw me share my Amazon presentation at a conference and loved the ninja tip I shared for creating a custom review link. However, she needed a little more help setting it up and so sent me this question through my “Ask Shelley” page.
“I love your idea of putting the link for reviewing your book in newsletters, blogs, etc., but as I’m on Amazon I’m not sure which link that is. I’m assuming you don’t want all the extra letters that would connect stuff to my account, but at the same time, when I take them away I only get a blurb of how to write a review, it doesn’t seem to be connected to my product.”
First of all, I would like to thank Paula for asking that question. I’m sure a lot of you will benefit from it.
So here is the step by step process of how you can create a link for your book reviewers.
Before we go any further, I would like to recommend that you optimize your book on Amazon for selling more books.
There are actually two ways that you can do it.
In the “Write a Customer Review” Block
The first technique is to go to your Amazon book page and click the “Write a Customer Review” block.
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In The News – Articles Of Interest For Authors
Good news fellow authors and storytellers, apparently we are awesome! Or at least happier in life and love. The Wall Street Journal says so!
Studies find the way people tell their own stories has an outsize effect on their life satisfaction
By Elizabeth Bernstein
Updated July 4, 2016
In William Shakespeare’s time, the word “conversation” meant two things—verbal discourse, and sex.
That’s how intimate the most well-known poet and playwright in the English language viewed the act of talking with another person.
Since the dawn of language, people have shared stories with others to entertain, persuade, make sense of what happened to them and bond. Research shows that the way people construct their individual stories has a large impact on their physical and mental health. People who frame their personal narratives in a positive way have more life satisfaction.
They also may be more attractive. New research, published this month in the journal Personal Relationships, shows that women find men who are good storytellers more appealing. The article consists of three studies in which male and female participants were shown a picture of someone of the opposite sex and given an indication of whether that person was a proficient storyteller. In the first study, 71 men and 84 women were told that the person whose picture they were looking at was either a “good,” “moderate” or “poor” storyteller. In the second study, 32 men and 50 women were given a short story supposedly written by the person in the picture; half the stories were concise and compelling, and half rambled and used dull language. In the third study, 60 men and 81 women were told whether the person in the picture was a good storyteller and were asked to rate their social status and ability to be a good leader in addition to their attractiveness.