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Articles about craft.

5 Reasons You Should Do NaNoWriMo: National Novel Writing Month

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November is fast approaching so you need to know about NaNoWriMo!

National Novel Writing Month is November every year and the aim is to write 50,000 words in 30 days on a new piece of work. Basically, it’s a novel in a month. But don’t be afraid – no one gets to read your “novel” so it is basically a first draft piece of work. Here’s Nanowrimo in a nutshell.

You should do this because:

  • You have always said you wanted to write a novel, so let this be your first step. I felt like this last year (Sept 2009) and last week (Sept 2010) my thriller novel ‘Pentecost’ came back from my editor. Yes, I started ‘Pentecost’ in NaNoWriMo last year and now it is a 70,000 word novel ready for rewrites. Woohoo! I only managed just over 21,000 words in November and most of that was cut out but the idea sprung from Nano as well as a lot of the key ideas and plot. It catapulted me into a novel in 2010.
  • You need to understand how to write a first draft fast. I didn’t know how to write fast last year. I hadn’t learned about separating the creator and editor in my mind and so I agonized over my writing. I felt I had to create a perfectly crafted sentence before writing fiction. Then I was introduced to “Write or Die” and word count goals, and behold, a novel began (the first of many!) Nanowrimo is about quantity of writing, not quality so you are forced to get the words out. There are no blocks here!
  • You will learn a lot in 30 days of writing. Check out my NaNoWriMo posts from last year including videos of my progress and lessons learned. It is an amazing way to get into the nuts and bolts of writing a novel. I was stunned by how much I learned through the process of writing itself and then investigating as I went.
  • You will be part of a global community. Join in the hashtag #nanowrimo on Twitter or the blog posts from writers around the world. Check in at NaNoWriMo.org to see what other people are up to. Receive the brilliant encouraging emails that help you along every week. You can even join in live or online writing events. Thousands of people do this, it is a community writing month!
  • You can clean the novel up later, it’s just a first draft! The aim is to write, not to be perfect. So get the ideas flowing and you will discover that actually writing encourages the muse. You don’t need to sit around thinking – just write! Editing the novel comes later and that is a much more extensive process, but no one can edit a blank page.

NaNoWriMo 2009 changed my life. I can say that hand on heart. It gave me the courage to write badly and to start writing fiction, to put words on the page and to let the ideas flow. I have spent most of this year reworking those ideas, but that month started the process. Without it I may still be saying “I wish I could write a novel” or “I only write non-fiction”. If you have a dream to write a novel, I urge you to register for NaNoWriMo and get started on Nov 1st! (Click here for information)

PS. After saying all that, I have to admit that I won’t be doing NaNoWriMo this year as I have rewrites to do for Pentecost in order to have it ready to enter the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Awards in Jan 2010. I did want to be ready but I am not pro enough to be able to complete a novel in 1 year yet! I hope you are still encouraged to join in.

Will you be joining NaNoWriMo this year?

 

This is a reprint from Joanna Penn‘s The Creative Penn.

Writing in Different Genres – A Writer's Tool Belt

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One of the fundamental parts of being writers, I think, is knowing your purpose for writing. Now, I’ll admit this is made much easier when your freelancing gigs keep you covered up in short informative articles or web content. That makes it simple. Yet, like any writer, you have this basic sense of purpose informing your choices on how to present those words. The issue is really one of genre. I’ve haven’t actively thought about this in a while other than some idle thoughts about switching over and writing some fiction rather than nonfiction. That’s really it.

Thinking It Over

On this fundamental level, all of us, as we prepare to writing something, should consider the purpose of their writing. There are some essential questions that help you determine this if you don’t already know intuitively. (This can differ with each writer and also how much experience one has.) What sort of questions? Well, for starters, are you writing for the purposes of entertainment? Or do you want to strictly inform the readers? Then again, you could be writing to persuade the reader of your viewpoint or position.

The act of deciding the purpose of whatever it is you’re writing has a close relationship to the purposes of reading something. What do I mean by that? Essentially, when you’ve defined the purpose you influence what types of choices you make about the form you want to use.

This is really where genre comes into play. It is a crucial decision since it can affect how the writing is received by your readers. Whether you are writing in the form of a story, a poem, a letter, or an essay, you may already have some clue about the ways these different literary forms are interpreted by the audience – and what ones work together the most effectively with your chosen subject matter.

Some Considerations

What I’ve realized is that you may not always get the genre right the first time. You may have written a story when a essay would have been more effective given your topic. Or, perhaps, in your effort to express your feelings simply by stating the facts as you see them or shaping them into a persuasive essay, you missed the pleasure of sharing your feelings in a poem or the lyrics of song.

Genre is something that typically has unique structure. It will serve you well if you can become knowledgeable of these distinctions so you don’t mistakenly mix them. The results could be atrocious. There are a variety of genres and categories that you will encounter during your time as a writer – provided you are still learning as much as you can about the craft you’ve called your own. (I’m talking to freelancers and novelists alike.)

A Starting Point For Further Study

It may be good to look at least six categories or genres that are a part of the writing life. Check them out. I’m offering them in no particular order but I do hope that you do some additional study of them individually.

1. Descriptive writing involves the careful choice of precise language, noting the sensory details and using metaphors and similes to make real, but powerful comparisons. You might be in the realm of essays and certain poetic types here.

2. Expository writing involves the synthesis and collation of information. You point here is to strive for objectivity. Often this genre will manifest as a report or a how-to article. You might also use elements of the expository in an essay or a treatise.

3. Narrative writing is storytelling. This is about creating your own tales, rewriting familiar ones in your own voice, and most of the time you’ll start dealing with elements like plots and characterization. This is the realm of the tried and true story arc – the beginning, middle, and end that make up every story created by human beings.

4. Poetry writing is the art of creating word pictures and using stylistic devices like rhyme and rhythm to express strong emotions or ideas. Poems come in all sorts of shapes and sizes.

5. Journals and letters offer a less rigid format for self-expression through words than some of the other genres cited here. Now this doesn’t mean that a letter cannot be a full formed essay if you choose to treat it that way. Still, letters – especially when handwritten letters were the rule rather than the exception – could be a very deep and intimate outlet for communicating. Journals and letters alike can be a mode for sharing news, record notes, explore new ideas, among other things.

6. Persuasive writing is all about trying to convince the reader to change their opinions and sway them with logic, moral appeals, and emotional language. You are wanting them to side with you. Effective persuasion in the written form is accomplished through a combination of a clearly expressed position that is supported by various examples and evidences.

Write On

I’ve come through this short exposition on genres with the belief that even I should take some time to look over these familiar genres and think through the ideas that I have to determine how they might be best explored. There are so many ways to express yourself as a writer. Now, that you have some fodder for your thoughts and ideas, I recommend you get started right now. Don’t hesitate.

 

This is a reprint from Shaun C. Kilgore‘s site.

Member Blog: 10 Steps to a Better Story

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I edit a lot of fiction, and I see a pattern of common problems in manuscripts from novice writers. The most important involve the bond between story and character. If you want an agent,editor, or reader to get past the first few pages, here are 10 things to keep in mind.

1. Make your main character want something. Desire is the engine that drives both life and narrative. Characters who don’t want anything are rarely interesting.

2. Make your main character do something. Your story can start with a character who is the victim of circumstances, but afterward the character needs to move quickly into action. Readers like characters who take charge.

3. Let your readers know the story’s premise early. If they get to the end of the first chapter and still can’t answer the question—what is the story about?—they might not keep reading.

4. Get conflict into the story early. It doesn’t have to be all-out bickering or deception between characters, but let your readers know things will sticky.

5. Skip the omniscient POV. Let the reader experience as much of the story as possible through the eyes of your main character. This is how readers bond with protagonists. If you shift POVs, at least put in a line break.

6. It’s okay to tell sometimes, instead of show. Not every character reaction has to be described in gut-churning, eyebrow-lifting physical detail. Sometimes it’s okay to simply say, “Jessie panicked.”

7. Introduce characters one at a time with a little background information for each. Too many characters all at once in the first few pages can be overwhelming.

8. Don’t overwrite. Nobody agrees on what constitutes good writing, so trying to make your writing stand out will probably work against you. The best writing doesn’t draw attention to itself; it just gets out of the way of the story.

9. Avoid word repetitions when you can. Read your story out loud. You’re much more likely to hear the repetitions than see them.

10. The components of a novel that readers care about most are, in order: story, characters, theme, setting. If you have to sacrifice something, start at the end of list. Never sacrifice the story for anything else.

 

This is a reprint from LJ Sellers‘ Publetariat member blog.

The Podpeople Invite You to the Goodreads Indie Page 99 Group

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This post, by PodPeople‘s Cheryl Anne Gardner, originally appeared on Self-Publishing Review on 10/12/10.

Ford Madox Ford said, “Open a book to page ninety-nine, and the quality of the whole will be revealed to you.”

As many of you know, we are all about the Indie book community, not in a fluffy bunny sort of way, but in an honest advocacy sort of way, and we are always looking for new reviewers and new content. We have recently started up our My Story column again, and we have also begun a new promotional column which follows the theme of the Page99 Book Test in light of the startup of Page99Test.com .

Those who know me and read my regular column know I agree with Ford Madox Ford. I have never been a first page “hook” person. The real writing is in the middle of a book. I’ve always believed that, so in the coming weeks The Podpeople will be featuring the page 99 of submitted Indie titles. We hope to make this a regular thing, and we ask our readers and Indie author supporters to spread the word. As a secondary part of this project, The Podpeople are now sponsoring a group over on Goodreads where independent authors of all kinds can post their page 99s for the Goodreads reader community. Details and Rules for posting can be found on the group homepage and are the same for submitting here to the blog:

Please add your book to the shelf, include a purchase link for the book and the following information in the body of the post:

Title:
Author:
Genre:
Copyright Notice: Date, Copyright holder’s name, and rights reserved.

Please provide the cover copy from the back of the book as well, or the book description if it’s ebook only and a good quality jpeg of the cover if you want it posted on the blog. The books must be for sale, include a link to your preferred sales site or sites. All Genres are welcome. No erotica. We would like to keep this a rated G/PG-13/R group. Use your discrection, please.

Read the rest of the post, which includes information about how indie authors can have their books featured both in the p99 GoodReads group and on the PodPeople site, on Self-Publishing Review.

Fiction Workshops: The Advanced Writer

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As you grow in craft knowledge you will probably need fewer readers in order to get the same information from your feedback. Where before you may have needed the weight of opinion to convince you that a problem needed addressing, long experience will tell you almost immediately which reader concerns are important — either because they are outright mistakes, or because the resulting effect was not what you intended.

Too, as your craft knowledge grows, you may be able to get as much out of a one-on-one response as you do from a workshop. Part of this is that you won’t need to learn the basics, and part of it is that you will know how to ask focused, craft-based questions of your readers.

As always, the goal in doing so is never a defense of your work, but rather trying to determine whether and why an intended effect failed, or why a reader was brought up short by something you wrote. Unless the issue is one of editing (typos, syntax, grammar, etc.) the issues readers report are almost invariably sourced not at the location of the confusion, but somewhere else in the story. Learning how to identify the source of a problem from feedback about the effect of a problem is the goal, and being able to do so consistently is a practical definition of mastery.

When you have reached this level of expertise you will still need readers, but you will probably not need a formal or large workshop in order to gauge your own work.

 

This is a reprint from Mark Barrett‘s Ditchwalk.

Self Publishing Success: A New Author Shares Her Journey In New Era Book Publishing

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This article, from Israel Vasquetelle, originally appeared on AwarenessMogul on 9/13/10 and is reprinted here in its entirety with the author’s permission.

I recently had the pleasure of interviewing author M. Louisa Locke. Her first novel, a Victorian era mystery, has managed to reach an audience despite not benefiting from the resources of a traditional book publisher. She’s not a household name, at least not yet, however, in the era of new media and the technology that makes it these channels possible, it’s not necessary to have a huge audience to find success.

Locke is part of a growing contingency of authors that have chosen to bypass the lottery-like odds that require the need to gain the limited attention of traditional publishers. Instead of chasing a middleman, she reaches a potential audience by utilizing the democratizing services of digital distributors and print on demand services that helped her to make her title a reality.

Traditionally, authors with aspirations of making it alongside bestsellers on bookshelves would need to convince gatekeepers of their potential to sell huge quantities. Obviously, only a tiny percentage of those considered ever garner a book deal. Once getting through that level of immense scrutiny, typically, for a new author, that means a small advance and a ticket on a waiting list that could last many months or years. Furthermore, for better or worse, the author’s words are subject to a barrage of changes and revisions by editors. If, and when the book finally hits the market, it will only receive the promotional resources of its publisher for a very short window of time. 

In many instances, the author also finds themselves investing their own funds and efforts to further promote the title. If an author is to realize income from the sale of the book, the revenue realized by the publisher first must offset expenses associated with the printing, packing, shipping, and marketing of that title. The publisher first has to recoup a bulk of their investment– including advance monies paid to the author– before the book’s creator ever has a shot at realizing further revenue. Even then, the potential of revenue in most cases is miniscule. This is because the author’s share is derived from a small percentage of sales. Because of this fairly standard model, only a small percentage of authors actually reap financial rewards from the sale of their product- beyond an initial modest advance. Without an impressive amount of sales, it may take quite a while for their next book to reach a bookshelf, if ever. Many authors understand these issues, however, continue to choose this route as a shot at reaching an audience and for the potential prestige associated with being a published author.

Due to changes in distribution and how people consume books, the publishing paradigm continues to change rapidly. Not too long ago Amazon announced that over 50% of its book sales are now coming from digital sales. This is great news for many authors that would never have a shot of having their books on the shelves of a Borders or Barnes & Noble nationally. Today, these authors can have their books sold right alongside the biggest-sellers on places like Amazon and B&N. And, its not just digital versions that are on these virtual shelves, physical books are now printed as orders come in. Technology makes it possible to forgo the need to incur the overhead of advance printing and then the shipping and storing for a book that may take months, if not longer, to sell. Even with these advances, sales aren’t going to happen effortlessly. Just making the content available doesn’t guarantee its consumption. Ultimately, the product has to be good and new authors must also be savvy marketers willing to participate in a variety of activities online to connect with audiences. For authors like Locke that fit that criteria, the opportunity for success is more of a reality than ever before.

Unlike the stories that we’re used to reading about the million-selling success of blockbusters, new stories will continue to emerge of a new type of media success that doesn’t involve immense budgets and multinational conglomerates. These individuals don’t have to recoup millions, hundreds of thousands, or in some cases not even thousands of dollars to be in the black. Many just have to reach hundreds or maybe thousands of interested readers. So, what is success in this new space? Everyone has a different definition, for many authors it’s simply making their work easily accessible by an audience and being fairly compensated for that consumption. Locke is realizing this achievement. In this interview, Locke shares her journey of publishing, technology, new media, and reaching an audience.

Can you discuss the premise of your book?

My book, The Maids of Misfortune: A Victorian San Francisco Mystery, is the first in a planned series of historical mysteries set in 1879 San Francisco and featuring Annie Fuller, a young widow who runs a boarding house. Annie supplements her income as the clairvoyant, Madam Sibyl, who gives business and domestic advice. When one of Madam Sibyl’s clients dies, Annie, with the help of a local lawyer, Nate Dawson, investigates his death.

From the beginning it was my intention to use the historical mystery genre to illuminate the late Victorian world of women and work. Maids of Misfortune focuses on domestic service, the most prevalent paid female occupation of the period, while Uneasy Spirits, the sequel I am currently working on, examines nineteenth century spiritualism and female trance mediums. Subsequent books in the series will concentrate on teaching, clerical work, and other common forms of paid work for women. These books will also investigate the Victorian gender system through the developing attraction between Annie and Nate. Of course, despite these historical themes, my primary purpose is to tell entertaining stories, with tension, romance, and humor.

As a college history professor, you obviously have a passion for the subject. Can you discuss what finally convinced you to write your book after being inspired so many years ago?

I actually had the idea for the book thirty years ago while working on my dissertation for a doctorate in history. I was reading a diary of a domestic servant who was complaining about being locked out of the house, and it gave me the idea for a locked room mystery. Ten years later, when I thought I would be stuck in the underpaid career of adjunct teaching, I wrote a first draft of the mystery. Then I was offered a full time job teaching at a local community college. This twenty-year career as a history professor was an extremely satisfying one, but it kept me so busy that I didn’t have the time to devote to writing and trying to sell the book.

However, I never gave up my determination to become a published author. I remained active in a writer’s critique group, I worked on rewriting sections of the book, and I kept up on trends in publishing. When I cut back on my teaching (instead of teaching 5 classes a semester, I only teach one), I knew I had to give my writing career one more chance.

I felt that Maids of Misfortune was a book that deserved to be read, and what I had learned about the new opportunities provided by self-publishing, ebooks, and print on demand technology convinced me that I didn’t have to depend on the traditional publishing route to make that happen. That was very liberating, and I have been pleased with my experience as an indie author.

There is a level of responsibility and control when you self-publish that is both terrifying and gratifying. I knew that I had to get my manuscript to the same level of professional writing as a traditionally published book–that was the terrifying part. At the same time, I had complete control over the text, cover and interior design, and marketing, and when the final product was finished and began to sell–that was very gratifying.

Your book falls into a unique niche due to it being a romance novel focusing on a Victorian era female sleuth. Can you discuss how your audience has managed to find you and your book?

At this point, I haven’t really positioned the book in the romance genre, although I do believe that fans of this kind of fiction would enjoy the book. This is simply because the romance in the book, while a strong part of the story, is subordinate to the mystery. In addition, there isn’t the explicit sex that readers of romances often expect.

Instead, I have concentrated on marketing Maids of Misfortune as part of the historical mystery sub-genre. To that end I contacted those websites that specialize in historical mysteries. For example, there is a site called Crime Thru Time and another called Historical Mystery Fiction that list mysteries by era. This is one way to make sure people who read this sort of fiction will find my book.

Amazon’s browsing capabilities may be the best way that fans of the historical mystery genre have of finding me. I specifically put the words "Victorian" and "Mystery" into my book title, and as a result, if you put in the words "Victorian mystery" into an Amazon book search, Maids of Misfortune consistently shows up on the first page, even when I hadn’t yet sold many books. In addition, Amazon’s "Customers Who Bought This Item, Also Bought…" programming very quickly began to list my book when people bought other better-known Victorian mysteries.

Perhaps most importantly, Amazon permits people to browse in its Kindle and print bookstores, and one specific sub-category is historical mysteries. At first, because of a computer glitch, my book didn’t show up under that path, but when this error was corrected, Maids of Misfortune started showing up as one of the top three bestsellers in this category on Kindle, and one of the top 100 in Amazon’s book store. Therefore, anyone looking for an historical mystery of any type is going to find mine, is going to see the 4 1/2 stars, the positive reviews, and the free sample. According to Amazon’s data, consistently 80% of the customers who click onto the product page for the print book go on to purchase it, and over 90% of the Kindle customers who click onto the book product page go on to buy the book. I think this is probably the main way I sell the book.

I know you have a blog, can you discuss a bit about how you connect with your audience there and on any other online platforms or social networks?

My blog, The Front Parlor, is the main place where I have chronicled my path as an indie author. I wrote a series of three long posts on "Why I decided to self-publish," and later addressed how I handled the lack of a professional editor in a series of posts entitled, "How to be your own best editor." These topics doesn’t necessarily translate into potential sales of my book, since people interested in this subject may not be interested in buying historical mysteries.

However, when I entered a contest on Publetariat, a site devoted to self-publishing, and won, this began to expose me to a much larger national audience. Once I became a regular contributor to this site and Maids of Misfortune began to be advertised on the site (as a consequence of winning the contest), I noticed an uptick in sales.

When I first published my book, I made an announcement on Facebook, and much to my pleasure a good number of old high school friends and acquaintances ordered the book. On the other hand, as of yet I don’t have an enormous number of Facebook "friends" so the impact of this has been rather limited (except I continue to hear about other people learning about the book through "word of mouth" from these first buyers).

I do use twitter, although again, like Facebook, my contacts are limited. I find twitter a great way to keep up on publishing trends, and I try to follow people who have shown interest in historical mysteries, which may have garnered me sales. I admire writers who make good use of twitter, but so far I haven’t figured out a way to use either twitter or Facebook efficiently or effectively. There are lots of "how to" advice articles on using social media to promote your books, but most of the suggestions seem to require a good deal of time (which takes me away from writing), or a kind of direct promotion with which I feel uncomfortable.

Can you discuss other ways that you build awareness for your book?

There are a good number of sites where readers hang out and chat about books, and I have just begun the process of joining and participating on these sites. Goodreads, LibraryThing, and Shelfari are the most famous. Each of these sites has smaller groups or forums that concentrate on different kinds of genre fiction–including historical mysteries. There are also specialized sites like the delightful romance fiction site, Smart Bitches, Trashy Books, and Historical Fiction Online, and KindleBoards. Every time I join in on a conversation on one of those sites, I am essentially introducing myself to new readers, who if they like what I have to say might check out my profile, see that I have published a book, and might eventually buy that book.

It is important to actually participate on these sites in an honest fashion rather than just joining to promote your book (readers are very touchy about this). I am a life-long reader and fan of mysteries and historical fiction (and devoted Kindle fan), so this really isn’t much of a hardship, but it does take time.

Have you reached out to press or new media outlets for coverage?

Standard print media outlets generally do not review self-published books or ebooks (or genre fiction for that matter). If my first book continues to do as well as it has, when I am ready to publish my next book I will probably contact my local paper, because at that point I will have an established track record, and they might be more likely to take me seriously.

In contrast, Internet reviewers seem more comfortable with the new trends in publishing, and there are an expanding number of bloggers who specialize in reviewing genre fiction. I queried 14 reviewers, got requests for review copies of the book from six, and eventually received four reviews, all positive. Traditional book publishers send hundreds of review copies of books out to reviewers, but I don’t know what kind of return they get on this effort in terms of reviews if the book isn’t by an established, best-selling author.

I did submit Maids of Misfortune to two contests for self published books as a way to garner press. I was a finalist in the historical fiction category in the 2010 Next Generation Indie Book Awards, and this meant that my book was part of this organization’s promotional activities, including the distribution of their catalog at Book Expo America in New York. (The second contest won’t announce winners until October.)

Can you describe any promotional activities? I believe that I read that you offer a free ebook. How has that worked out in regards to building your audience and garnering sales?

I haven’t pursued the use of contests (with free giveaways), which is one promotional method that some authors are using, although one of the on-line reviewers gave away my book in one of her promotional contests.

What I did was write a short story, Dandy Detects, based on characters from my novel, and I offer that free on Smashwords (which because of its affiliations, means it is also free in the Barnes and Noble estore and Ibooks on the IPad.) Over 400 copies of this short story have been downloaded on Smashwords, which means 400 potential buyers of Maids of Misfortune. A number of people who have independently reviewed Maids of Misfortune on Amazon, Shelfari, etc., mentioned reading Dandy Detects first.

Unfortunately, as a self-published author on Kindle, I couldn’t offer the story for free, but have to charge 99 cents. Even so, I have sold over 250 Dandy Detects on Kindle. But, I got a chance to see the effectiveness of offering free material when Steven Windwalker on Kindle Nation Daily featured Dandy Detects as part of his "Free Kindle Shorts" at the beginning of July. Within two days I sold 187 copies of Maids of Misfortune, I hit the top of "movers and shakers" on Amazon, and this is when I started showing up in the top of the bestselling list of historical mysteries.

Are you involved with any offline activities such as book readings or signings? Have you sold books directly to your audience at such outings? If you haven’t, why not, and would you consider? 

Book tours and books signings are the traditional methods of promotion for most authors (with the mailing of book marks, post cards, and newsletters as a way to tap into an existing fan base–a base that I am just now creating). I haven’t pursued any of these activities as of yet. I am not convinced from what I have read, and from the experiences of my friends who have published traditionally that these methods are cost effective.

In addition, it is very difficult to get self-published books into traditional bookstores (who would be then willing to host a book signing). This is the main marketing advantage traditionally published print books have over independently published (or electronic) books. Their sales departments sell to bookstores, and then an author can book a signing with stores (who benefit because it brings traffic into the store).

Self-published authors can sometimes convince bookstores to carry their books on consignment (particularly if it is a local author with a certain local fan base). The local mystery bookstore in San Diego, Mysterious Galaxy, has agreed to do this for me. I will probably arrange a book signing with them when I launch my next book. I am also planning on writing to local bookstores in San Francisco (since my book is set in that city), and I hope that some of them will also be willing to carry Maids of Misfortune on consignment. If I am successful, I would try to arrange some book signings in that city.

For authors who publish ebooks, or print on demand books, (Maids of Misfortune is both), it is estores like Amazon.com, Smashwords, and Ibooks, not brick and mortar stores, that are important. And the data is quite clear-it is in estores where a steadily increasing percentage of books are now being bought. Therefore the marketing strategies that drive buyers to those sites and help them find my book when they shop in those ebook stores (Internet reviewers, social networking, fan sites, key words, etc.) make the most sense for me as a self-published author.

I do think I would consider doing a virtual blog tour, probably for the launch of the next book. Here you arrange to guest blog on a variety of blogs, which then helps promote those sites (since you advertise this on your own websites), but it also garners you potential sales from their readerships.

Can you discuss the publishing process? Can you describe your experience with the services that you used? Did you hire an editor?

The first step to self-publishing a book has to start with getting your manuscript in perfect condition. This means you want the reader to have no clue that it didn’t go through the whole traditional editing process-which doesn’t just mean no typos or grammatical errors, it means a high standard of writing, well plotted, and characters you care about. The most gratifying aspect of publishing Maids of Misfortune has been the frequent comment by readers that they didn’t want it to end, and they can’t wait until the next book. This is how I feel about my favorite books, and to have this said to me about my book is an immeasurable pleasure.

I didn’t hire an editor-although I think that most new self-published authors should, and I very well might hire one for future books. I had been working on this book literally for 20 years, I had gotten feedback from agents, editors, and my book critique group, I had rewritten it several times, and I had 30 years of correcting other peoples writing under my belt. In addition, I spent about four more months rewriting, with extensive cutting, polishing, and proofreading, and then I gave it to readers, and after their comments, I went through it one more time.

The next task was to get a cover designed-which was the one thing I paid someone else to do. I knew that I needed a cover that would show up well as a thumbnail-which is the main way most people will see it, but it was also important that it look completely professional for those people who bought the print book. I hired a local designer, Michelle Huffaker, who has subsequently become a good friend, and she did a terrific job.

I had chosen to publish Maids of Misfortune as an ebook with Smashwords and Kindle, and to produce my print book through Amazon’s print on demand division, CreateSpace. The main task to do this is to format the manuscript according to the requirements for each one.

Some people pay other people to do the formatting. I did it myself. I am not particularly tech savvy (my husband was my tech support) and it did require an attention to detail, but was not all that difficult. There are guides, how-to-books, and community forums to turn to for advice, but I depended on April Hamilton’s Indie Author Guide on Kindle, and a new print edition is coming out in this winter-I highly recommend it. For Smashwords you primarily had to produce a word document with all the formatting stripped from it so that their formatting program could work. For Kindle you need to create an html document. There was more to do to plan the interior design for the CreateSpace print edition (headers, chapter breaks, margins and gutters, etc), and it required a pdf document. However, once the files were created in each format, uploading the files and covers literally took minutes. Once I proofed each version and clicked "publish" the books were ready to be purchased in less than a week. Talk about instant gratification!

Are there other services that you considered using, but didn’t?

I might eventually publish an ebook with Scrib’d, but the benefit of Smashwords is that it produces a book that can be read on a variety of ereaders, including the Nook and IPad. Kindle is not only the largest market for ebooks, but through KindleAps, makes my book available on smart phones, the IPad, etc. In addition Smashwords provides the author 85% royalty rate, and now Kindle gives me 70% royalty rate-which is fantastic.

The other print on demand service I considered was LuLu, which provides a pretty comparable service and production cost to CreateSpace, but using CreateSpace gave me access to Amazon’s free shipping option for buyers, and the CreateSpace and Kindle support staffs-since they are both divisions of Amazon–were crucial to helping me solve the browsing path error I discussed previously.

What has the ratio of physical to ebooks sold via your selected online sellers?

At the end of the first four months, 54% of the books I had sold were ebooks, but the next four months 79% of the books I sold were ebooks. Since my ebooks are priced at $2.99 and my print books are $12.75, I am pleased that I am doing as well as I am selling print copies!

You generously revealed information about your first quarter sales. In a recent article in Publetariat.com, you shared that you’ve cracked the 1,000 sales mark. Can you discuss what activities you feel have provided the best results?

I believe a series of activities, cumulatively, have helped increase my sales.

In April 2009 three things happened. I became a regular contributor to Publetariat, I published my short story, Dandy Detects, and I changed my ebook price on Maids of Misfortune from $4 to $2.99. My total sales in March were 28; my total sales in April were 46. There are a number of people who have discussed how $2.99 seems like an important price point-that readers feel comfortable with taking a chance on a book at this price. I also noticed that occasionally for some reason Amazon discounts this to $2.39 and my numbers go up even more.

Then in May I began to get my first reviews on websites and got the book award, and my total sales in May were 80!

The trend continued upward, so that in June I sold 156 books. At the end of June I got the browsing path on Amazon fixed, and a week later the short story was featured on Kindle Nation Daily. In July I sold 490 books (three times what I sold the month before!). If you take away that 2-day bump, I still did well with 302 books sold. In August I have sold 330 books, averaging slightly more than 10 books a day, 75% of them ebooks. I figure that if I keep active on my blog, keep participating on other blogs and on the fan sites, I should at least be able to maintain that average. And with each new reader, there is the incalculable word of mouth factor to potentially increase my sales.

Would you have done anything differently?

The best way to answer this is to discuss 1) what I still hope do to continue market Maids of Misfortune and 2) what I plan to do differently for the next book.

1) As I mentioned earlier, I really haven’t pursued the traditional markets or marketing strategies. So I am committed to reaching out to more local San Diego books stores, as well as to San Francisco bookstores. I will be giving a talk at my college on my experiences with self-publishing, and I will talk to the college newspaper and other publications about doing interviews.

My intention was always to use my blog to talk about more than self-publishing, and I would like to begin to do a series of posts about writing historical fiction, and I think that will also make my blog more interesting to people who have read or might be interested in reading my book.

My author website is very practical-it is an effective place to find out about my book and short story and how to purchase them. But I would like to make the site a place where people who have gotten involved in the world of Maids of Misfortune would come to learn more about the characters, the time period, and the places that were featured in the book.

2) What I will do differently when I am ready to publish my sequel, Uneasy Spirits, is concentrate on truly "launching" the book with a lot more pre-publication activity. I will get reviews ahead of time. I will reach out to any stores who have shown interest in the first book and schedule launch parties and book signings. I will schedule a blog tour. I will encourage people who have bought the book to review it immediately and put those reviews on Amazon and Smashwords-something I didn’t do with Maids of Misfortune.

What’s your biggest lesson that you’ve learned from this experience?

I have learned if you have a good "product," in my case a well-written historical mystery, and you make the effort to use the new opportunities available on the Internet so that potential buyers will come across the book, look at the reviews, and sample the first chapter, that you can be successful.

Am I making a lot of money yet? No-although I am making $2 a book on my ebooks, and $2.77 on my print books-so the reader can do the math. . Could I make a living at this? Yes, in time if I produced 3 or 4 more books like Maids of Misfortune, and the ebook market continues to expand, as everyone predicts it will.

Without the option of self-publishing and ebooks, and these new ways of marketing, I am not at all convinced I would have gotten this book published, or if I did, that I would have been successful in getting enough books sold in bookstores before the dreaded return policy of stores kicked in. As a result, I probably, at my age (60) wouldn’t have had the motivation to continue to market the book, or write the sequel. And Annie Fuller and Nate Dawson and their world would not have been heard from, and that would be a shame.

 

 

Bad Advice to Ignore from Your Critique Group

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This post, from Anne R. Allen, originally appeared on her blog on 5/9/10.

Finding a beta reader or critique group is essential to any writer’s development. We can’t write in a vacuum. Nobody ever learned to be a good writer holed up in an attic with no one to review his work but the cat. (Cats can be so cruel.)

Rachelle Gardner ran a guest post by Becky Levine in April with useful advice on how to choose a critique group by assessing your own stage of writing development.

There are lots of places to look for groups—bookstores and libraries if you want an in-person experience, or writers’ forums and genre organizations like RWA online. I’ve heard good things about Critique Circle and there are many more. If you’re looking for a single beta reader, you might try the forums at Nathan Bransford’s blog , the hub of all things writerly on the interwebz

But remember not all the advice you’ll hear will be useful. As Victoria Strauss says in her must-read Writer Beware blog “never forget that people who know nothing are as eager to opine as people who know something.”

Even worse than know-nothings are the know-somethings who turn every bit of advice they’ve ever heard into a “rule” as ironclad and immutable as an algebraic formula. Follow their advice and your book will read like an algebraic formula, too.

Here are a few critique group “rules” I find more annoying than useful.

1) Eliminate all clichés

Unless your characters are wildly inventive poets, space aliens, or children fostered by wolves, their dialogue and thoughts will include familiar expressions. Don’t rob your Scarlett O’Hara of her "fiddle dee-dees" or deprive your Bogart of "doesn’t amount to a hill of beans."
 

Read the rest of the post, which includes 7 more types of advice to ignore, on Anne R. Allen‘s blog.

10 Steps to a Better Story

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I edit a lot of fiction, and I see a pattern of common problems in manuscripts from novice writers. The most important involve the bond between story and character. If you want an agent,editor, or reader to get past the first few pages, here are 10 things to keep in mind.

1. Make your main character want something. Desire is the engine that drives both life and narrative. Characters who don’t want anything are rarely interesting.

2. Make your main character do something. Your story can start with a character who is the victim of circumstances, but afterward the character needs to move quickly into action. Readers like characters who take charge.

3. Let your readers know the story’s premise early. If they get to the end of the first chapter and still can’t answer the question—what is the story about?—they might not keep reading.

4. Get conflict into the story early. It doesn’t have to be all-out bickering or deception between characters, but let your readers know things will sticky.

5. Skip the omniscient POV. Let the reader experience as much of the story as possible through the eyes of your main character. This is how readers bond with protagonists. If you shift POVs, at least put in a line break.

6. It’s okay to tell sometimes, instead of show. Not every character reaction has to be described in gut-churning, eyebrow-lifting physical detail. Sometimes it’s okay to simply say, “Jessie panicked.”

7. Introduce characters one at a time with a little background information for each. Too many characters all at once in the first few pages can be overwhelming.

8. Don’t overwrite. Nobody agrees on what constitutes good writing, so trying to make your writing stand out will probably work against you. The best writing doesn’t draw attention to itself; it just gets out of the way of the story.

9. Avoid word repetitions when you can. Read your story out loud. You’re much more likely to hear the repetitions than see them.

10. The components of a novel that readers care about most are, in order: story, characters, theme, setting. If you have to sacrifice something, start at the end of list. Never sacrifice the story for anything else.

Book Video Awards 2010

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This is a cross-posting about a book trailer contest being held on the Foyle’s bookseller site. Whether you wish to participate in the contest (by voting) or not, it’s worth checking out the contest entries to get some ideas for creating your own book trailer.

The Book Video Awards is a joint initiative run by Random House and The Bookseller Magazine. Now in its third year, the objective of the Awards is to enable talented young film directors to make high quality video trailers for great books. Students from the National Film and Television School are invited to submit proposals to create a 90 second trailer for a book from a selection presented by Random House. The winners each receive £5,000 to create their videos which are then used to promote the books online for example on author and fan sites, YouTube and retailers. Videos from previous years have also been used in adverts, on TV news and as enhancements for ebooks.

Read more general information about the contest here.

View the four finalist 2010 book trailers and cast your vote here.

Here are links to some videos from previous years:
The Outcast by Sadie Jones
The Monsters of Templeton by Lauren Groff

Here’s a link to a page with finalist video trailers for Childrens’ books, which was the contest theme last year.

 

Promote Your Book and Your Publishing Business with Bonus Materials

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Giving away free bonus materials is a great way to drive traffic to your website, encourage people to sign up for your opt-in mailing list, and promote your books and other products and services.

Having free resources and bonus materials on your website can draw visitors to the site, encourage repeat visits, and motivate visitors to recommend your site to others. You can also advertise your free bonus materials through your social networks, press releases and other promotional tools. Bonuses are effective for both fiction and nonfiction books.

Customers who have already purchased your book in a retail or online bookstore or checked it out at the library haven’t necessarily visited your website. A good way to encourage readers to visit your site is to include information within your book about bonus materials available at your website. For example, include a page at the back of the book or a message at the end of a chapter inviting the reader to visit your website for more information or a special bonus.

There are several ways to give away bonus material on your site. First, it’s important to encourage people to sign up for your opt-in mailing list so that you can continue to keep in touch with them and let them know about other books or services you offer. The best way to encourage opt-ins is to offer a free bonus to visitors in exchange for their name and email address.

If you have more than one bonus item to offer, you can make the others freely available. Some authors offer bonus material that’s exclusive to people who already bought the book. For example, you might offer downloadable worksheets from your book and require customers to enter a password (such as "the first word on page 47 of the book") to gain access. A more user-friendly alternative is to list a special URL in the book that links to bonus material that’s not found elsewhere on your website.

 

Bonus material can be in the form of downloadable documents or online resources. The key is to offer something educational, useful or entertaining that’s tied to the topic of your book. Here are some bonus ideas for nonfiction books:
 

  • Ebooks and special reports
  • Video and audio tutorials
  • Checklists
  • Quizzes
  • Case studies
  • Updated material from the book
  • Shopping guides
  • Teleseminars
  • Mini-courses via email

For a great example, take a look at the downloadable grocery shopping, food storage and meal planning tools on the Eat Clean Diet website.

Here are some ideas for giveaways suited to fiction books:
 

  • Short prequel or sequel featuring characters from your book
  • Historical profile for the time period that the book is set in
  • Profile of the location where the story takes place
  • Sample chapter from the book
  • List of other similar books (including yours) that readers may enjoy
  • Contests related to the story or theme of the book
  • Checklist for keeping track of favorite authors and books to read
  • Games, puzzles, or videos for children’s books

Downloadable documents can reinforce your brand and advertise your other products and services. For example, you can place an "about" page at the end of the document that promotes your other offerings.

Think about what type of bonus materials would be best suited to your book and how you can use those materials to draw people to your website, increase your opt-in list, and promote your other products and services.
 

This is a reprint from Dana Lynn Smith’s The Savvy Book Marketer.

No It's Not Writer's Block, It's….

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It seems I keep circling around this topic every time I think about what I want to say here. Writer’s block is nothing new if you happen to be a writer by trade. It’s been covered so many times in so many contexts that I really don’t think it is worth the time to address anew here. Okay, you might be wondering why I’m writing this post then. I want to answer that by saying that I’m beginning to think differently about the whole concept of writer’s block.

I’ve heard my share of those who believe writer’s block and those who patently refuse to acknowledge it as a reality. I sort of exist in this middle ground where I acknowledge there is something happening. I myself have endured the disruptive experience where nothing is moving through my creative centers. I can’t get one word to form on the page. I can’t say with honesty that writer’s block is a myth or an excuse – although it has been used as one. Other times, it may merely be matter of calling it a block when there is something else happening below the surface.

When I think about writer’s block, most of the time the main thought takes the form of a question. "Am I sure this is writer’s block?" Then the next question becomes, "What is it then?"

Other Options

There is reason to believe that there are other reasons you can’t write. I want to at least mention them briefly so you might rethink how you explain problems with writing.

1. Maybe you haven’t planned your writing enough. Now, this option doesn’t fly far with those writers who disdain the idea of outlining, but I want to at least mention it. Still, it matters to many us who struggle with a piece writing simply because we didn’t think to jot down some notes or outline the possible structure of an article or an essay. Do you see what I’m getting at? A little forethought can go a long way to keep you working when a bout of block would have been the result in the past.

2. Perhaps, you need a break. Now, this can be revolutionary for the workaholic writers among us. You may think that spilling words on the page a breakneck speed is the only way to work – that is until you trip over a monster-sized block. You may also be pushing yourself closer to a true burnout. Either way, the idea of stopping and taking a breather may do more good than you think. By taking time away from keyboard to spend time with friends or family, or may catch a movie or something, you may begin to recharge your creative batteries so you can come back ready to write .

3. Turn your attention to another project. It may really be as simple as shifting your focus from project that’s got you gridlocked. If you have one article you’re trying to draft, but have another that’s already written, why not spend time editing that piece until you feel ready to write the other one. This is just one idea. Think about this one. Maybe you can come up with some ideas for yourself.

In Closing….

Obviously, there may be other reasons why you find yourself affected by writer’s block of one type or another. I would suggest that the writers among my readers reconsider what’s happening. Don’t use block as an excuse not to do something. There may be better options that keep you productive. At least you can think about it. See you next time.

 

This is a reprint from Shaun C. Kilgore‘s site.

That Simplest Of Ways To Improve Your Writing

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When I completed writing my first manuscript, I sent my novel off to an editor so she could inform me just how many gracious platitudes I might receive from adoring novel lovers. As I’m certain you’ve already surmised, she utterly failed in her mission.

Though the manuscript contained more red ink that black when I received it, one specific note she made, and made, and made related to my use of the word, “that.” Beside the first such notation she indicated, and I paraphrase, the word can most often be eliminated from writing without losing any meaning or substance. Since then I’ve found we use the word so often in our everyday speaking it’s not even noticed. However, when I read it, that word jumps out to me these days.

I researched “Success with Words – A Guide to the American Language” for this blog post and, wow, did they go on and on about it. (And it published was by Readers’ Digest, of all people.) Regardless, for the sake of article length and purpose, suffice it to say the word is used as a pronoun, an adjective and a conjunctive.

Further, let’s stick with my editors’ suggestion, shall we? She offered a simple trick I still use to this day. She recommended I read the sentence aloud without the offending word and consider if it could be eliminated. If none of the meaning of the sentence is lost by this, it is unnecessary and I should cut it. Alas, I lost much of my word count during that exercise.

Let’s look at some examples.

“What’s the best way to get that accomplished?”

“What’s the best way to get accomplished?”

You see the sentence lacking the word loses something, doesn’t it? It doesn’t make sense. In this case, keep “that” in place. Another example follows.

“Organize your files so that you can find things with ease.”

“Organize your files so you can find things with ease.”

It’s obvious in this second example that the word is not necessary and may be eliminated, therefore, making the second sentence, and this one, of higher quality as it relates to writing.

The easiest method I’ve found is to perform this edit is to use the Find feature in your word processing program and go down the long list of things it spews forth. It won’t take as long as you think and once you’ve done this, it becomes second nature.

Now, there is a caveat I noted in “Success with Words” so I’ll pass it along. It said the word is often still acceptable in formal language. However, when was the last time you used formal language?

I personally tend to leave it in for certain characters in my novels’ dialogue. I now use it for the less educated of characters, whereas with my better educated ones I do not.

As you work through your edits, try this simple technique and I’ll bet you’ll be surprised just how well it improves your writing.

Until we meet again, I wish you only best-sellers.
 

 

This is a reprint from C. Patrick Shulze‘s Author of Born to be Brothers blog.

Saturday Chit-Chat: A Plotting Workshop

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This article, by Julie Leto, originally appeared on the Plotmonkeys site on 4/28/07.

Couple of weeks ago, I asked if it would be okay with the Plotmonkey readers if we devoted a little time to the writers who join us here on the blog. Since everyone seemed amenable, I’m going to hijack the Saturday Chit-Chat for the next few weeks to present my notes from a workshop I recently did for my TARA chapter called “Plotting With Your Pants On.” Ask questions, comments, request examples and clarifications…hopefully the other monkeys will jump in too with their commentary. (Except Leslie, who is off at a conference this weekend.)

Here it is…I’ll be presenting in parts.

Part One

Plotting with Your Pants On

In recent years, two schools of thought have emerged in terms of how writers plot their books. If you’ve been in RWA long enough, you’ve heard the term “plotter” and “pantster.” The plotter being the writer who carefully and meticulously plans out every key point in the scenes, chapters and “acts” (under screenwriting’s three or four act systems, which I’ll discuss next week), does character interviews, exhaustively researches and for all intents and purposes, comes off as anal and left brained.

The pantster, on the other hand, is so named because this writer works from the seat of their pants, rather than from any definitive plan. The original term for this was “misters,” a term coined, I believe, by Jo Beverly when she gave an RWA keynote address and wrote several articles on “Flying Into the Mist,” which basically outlined her process of sitting at the computer and typing away, letting the story tell itself organically without any definitive plot to guide her. This is all very creative, very right-brained, very…literary.

Over the past few years, there has emerged a sort of factioning that disturbs me as a writer. Assumptions are made about the creativity level of one author over the other…and frankly, about the talent.

I believe very strongly that these arguments are ridiculous. But it’s easy for me because I’m a switch-hitter. I “do it both ways” as it were.

Read the rest of the article on Plotmonkeys, and also see Part II. 

Story Awarded Sixth Place

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The results are in for a short story I entered this summer in White County Creative Writers Contests at Searcy, Arkansas. I was awarded sixth place for a version of the story I received second place for in an earlier contest. This time the story could only be 1500 words. That meant I had to do some drastic cutting and at the same time keep the basic story in tact. I managed to do just that, but I like the longer version better so that is my post for today. This story takes place during the Depression in the 1930’s.

 

The Unexpected Visitor

　

The two room cabin Rachel Archer rented wasn’t air tight, but it beat sleeping out in the open with the migrants. Sitting at her kitchen table drinking a second cup of morning coffee, she watched the freight trains slow down at the road crossing. Four men jumped on the flat cars and six leaped off. It was an ever day occurrence these days. Homeless and jobless men headed west, looking for work. The men disembarking were on their way back home after finding out there weren’t any jobs to be had. At night, the red and gold glimmer of a dozen or so campfires glowed in the timber near the cabin. Most days, at least a couple poorly dressed, unbathed men, looking half starved, knocked at the back door, expecting her to give them a handout.

Rachel picked the three folded sheets of tablet paper up off the table and reread them. Last week, the letter came from a fellow teacher, Mary Winters. Rachel hadn’t seen her for over a year when they spent a term teaching at the same school seventy-five miles away. She was delighted Mary was coming for a visit. In fact, her friend be arriving any minute.

Looking around the cabin, Rachel anxiously wondered what Mary would think of this place she called home. No matter what condition it was in or how cramped she was for room, Rachel considered herself lucky to have a place to live. The alternative was staying at a student’s home. This way she had privacy, and the door locked so she felt safe at night.

If only she could stop the nightly noises that kept her awake. Lately, the irritating gnawing under the kitchen floor had given her nights of disturbed sleep. What she heard had to be a rat. No mouse would be big enough to make that much racket. Suddenly a horrible thought came to her. What if that rat made his way through the wooden floor while her company was visiting? How embarrassing that would be.

Mid morning, Mary Winters knocked on the cabin door. Rachel greeted her with a hug. "Come in. It is so good to see you."

"I couldn’t wait to get here. I’ve missed our talks this last year," Mary said, returning Rachel’s hug.

"Me, too. Sit down at the table. I’ve kept the coffee pot on so we could have a cup when you got here. I expect you are about wore out from the trip."

"Not really, but the roads make for rough riding with all the pot holes and ruts. I thought that poor truck I hitched a ride on was going to fall apart before the farmer got me here," Mary said, laughing. As she sat down, she looked around the combined kitchen-living room.

"Not the biggest of home, but big enough for me. Beats bunking with one of the students," Rachel assured her. "I wouldn’t have a bit of privacy, and another family’s home life is so hard to get used to for me and them."

"I know that feeling. I spent the last term with a family of six kids. That might not be so bad, but the father made me nervous. I didn’t like the way he watched me all the time."

"Did he think you might steal something?"

"I don’t think that was his problem. I just made sure to never be alone with him," Mary admitted, ducking her head bashfully.

"You must get out of there. You are applying for a different school for this fall, aren’t you?" Rachel asked, appalled at what her friend had been going through.

"Already got a different school close by as a matter of fact so we can visit more often," said Mary, grinning.

"Wonderful!"

A train, traveling east, blew its whistle as it approached the crossing. Mary watched out the window with a frown. The freight train slowed down. Men jumped from the box cars and ran into the trees. "Did you have a good year here at the school?" Mary kept a troubled look as her eyes stayed glued to what was happening out the window.

"Yes, I had a nice size bunch of kids. Sometimes I wish I lived somewhere that didn’t get as much snow in the winter. I hate being snowed in for days on end," Rachel admitted.

"I know that feeling," Mary said in a distracted voice. Another train, headed west, slowed down at the crossing. Men ran along side and jumped on while almost as many men leaped off. Mary shook her head in dismay.

"Is something wrong?" Rachel asked.

"How are you so brave to live this close to the railroad tracks? Hobos keep jumping on and off the trains at the crossing."

"The hobos don’t bother me," Rachel assured her. "They do knock on the door once in awhile to ask for food. If I have extra, I give what I can."

"Doesn’t sound like a good idea to me. You shouldn’t encourage that sort of thing. Those men look desperate to me and that makes them dangerous," warned Mary.

"Perhaps, you’re just edgy because of what you’ve been through this last year. Those men are just down on their luck. How about some lunch? This afternoon, I want to take you over to the school and show you around. I have a car. When you’re ready to leave in a few days, I’ll take you back to town to catch a bus," Rachel offered.

After dark, Mary jumped at every little noise outside. Rachel laughed at how spooked her friend was. "Relax. There’s always stray dogs and cats prowling in the night, looking for scraps."

By bedtime, Mary still wasn’t convinced the cabin was a safe place to sleep. A series of sharp yips startled her. The racket came from the hillside in front of the cabin.

"That is coyotes on the run. They’ll be into some farmer’s chickens before morning, I expect," Rachel told her.

The yips came again. "Those animals sound like they’re right outside the cabin," Mary said, shuttering.

Angry voices, some talking loud and others yelling, drifted from the timber to the women through the thin cabin walls. "Sounds like the migrants are into a fight again," said Rachel with a sigh.

"Again," screeched Mary. "You mean this happens often?"

"Once in awhile. Some of the migrants are a rough lot," Rachel admitted, looking at her sideways.

In the bedroom, Mary put on her nightgown and crawled under the covers on the cot Rachel fixed for her. She tossed and turned, having trouble going to sleep in the pitch black room. In a trembling voice, she said, "Rachel, how do you know the difference between a dog prowling outside your door and a hobo?"

Rachel’s voice held humor as she said, "Simple. The dog can’t turn the door knob."

"Honestly, Rachel, you’re awful. That isn’t one bit funny," Mary said, pulling her covers up to her chin. "Do you have a gun?"

"Land’s sakes, no. Just go to sleep, Mary. You’ll be safe enough in here with me," Rachel assured her.

Mary listened intently at first in case hobos lurked outside. Finally, she slept fitfully, dreaming the cabin was surrounded by hobos. They peeked in the windows and rattled the door knob.

Right on cue as soon as the lights went out and the women stopped talking, the rat gnawed with gusto. Rachel held her breath, hoping that Mary didn’t hear the racket. Rumbling snores from across the room convinced her the noise wouldn’t bother Mary. Rachel fell asleep wishing she could figure out a way to persuade that nasty creature to move out from under her home. The sooner the better. She longed for a peaceful night’s sleep.

The next morning, Rachel, while filling the coffee pot at the sink, looked down. There was what she had dreaded for days. In front of the sink was the feared hole, with fresh wood shavings heaped around the edges. Slowly, she opened the sink door. Cowering in a shadowy corner behind a stack of iron skillets, the beady eyed, black rat stared at her.

Horrified, Rachel screamed. She forgot about her sleeping company as she yelled, "Oh my, he’s gotten in." She slammed the sink door.

Startled awake, Mary sprang off the cot. She pulled a butcher knife out from under her pillow. The picture of an unkempt, menacing hobo ran through her mind. At that very minute, he was stalking Rachel in the kitchen.

"Where’s he at?" Mary’s loud voice trembled. Her bare feet thudded on the floor as she raced to the doorway. Afraid for her life, she flattened herself against the bedroom wall to listen.

"Under the sink," Rachel replied in a disgusted voice.

Welding the knife with its blade up in the air, Mary peeked around the door. Bewildered, she looked around the room. Rachel, stood with her hands on her hips, glaring at the sink cabinet door. "How – how did he get in there?" She stuttered.

Looking over her shoulder, Rachel spotted Mary’s weapon. "That my knife?"

"If you had a gun, I wouldn’t need this for protection. I slept with it under my pillow," Mary replied sheepishly.

Rachel grabbed the broom, leaning in the corner. She opened the sink door and prodded back and forth with the handle. "Get out of there," she yelled.

Mary clamped her hand over her mouth and shrank back into the bedroom. She waited for the hobo to unbend from his contortious position and spring out of the cupboard. When he attacked Rachel, she’d have to be brave enough to stab him with the knife, but she didn’t know where she’d find the courage.

Suddenly, the rat darted out of the cabinet and ran in circles around Rachel’s feet. Doing a jumping dance, the frantic woman slapped the floor wildly with her broom. Mary peeked into the kitchen. She ducked back out of sight just in time to keep from getting hit when the broom came up over Rachel’s head. The rat headed for under the table. Rachel slapped the business end of the broom down at him, but missed. He hunkered by a far table leg, hoping that Rachel wouldn’t spot him.

Rachel rammed the broom handle at him, yelling, "Out from under the table, you creepy thing."

"He’s under that small table?" Mary cried in disbelief from the bedroom.

"He was," Rachel screeched. "He’s on the move again now."

A fast black blur, the rat, hunkered low and scurried across the floor, up the cupboard and under the wooden bread box lid.

Rachel cried, "Oh, no! He went in the bread box with my bread." Mary, clutching the knife, eased out into the kitchen. "Let him have the bread. You can buy more." Completely befuddled, she looked at the small box and whispered, "How could he fit in there?"

As Rachel turned her back on the bread box to answer, she felt a scratchy, fuzzy upward movement inside her left slack leg. She clutched her thigh and watched the lump continue to move up her slacks past her knee. "Oh, Mary, he’s in my slacks. What will I do?"

Thinking Rachel had lost her mind, Mary said, "Dear, he couldn’t be in there. Don’t you think you should sit down?"

"I can’t do that. I have to get shut of him," Rachel said, giving Mary a disgusted look. She yanked the back door open and ran out into the yard.

Mary followed her. Helplessly, she watched Rachel frantically jump up and down like she was skipping rope.

As the movement continued in Rachel’s slacks leg, she darted around the yard holding her leg tightly and screaming very loud. After she grew weary from the exertion, she looked down at her slack leg and begged, "Please leave. Please leave."

"Poor Rachel. I knew living out here on this prairie had to get to you. I just didn’t realize you were this bad. Please stop bouncing around," Mary commanded, grabbing Rachel by the shoulder. "You must calm down. I promise you there isn’t a hobo in your slacks."

That statement brought Rachel to an instant stop. Panting, she gave Mary a incredulous glare. "There isn’t a hobo in my pants. What are you talking about?"

Mary answered in a small voice. "I thought you thought you had a hobo going up your leg. What do you have in your pants?"

"Believe it or not. What’s in my pants is much worse. It’s a rat."

Mary turned loose of Rachel and staggered backed a few feet. "Really?"

"Really. I knew he was under the cabin floor, but I hoped he wouldn’t gnaw through while you was here." Rachel couldn’t feel movement in her hands anymore. She loosened her grip on the lump. It didn’t move. She shook her leg and cringed as she felt the tickling, furry lump slide down her shin. The motionless rat appeared and lay her shoe. Rachel gave a fast kick, sending the rat toward Mary.

Pale faced, Mary squealed and dodged sideways.

"Thank goodness, he’s dead," Rachel sighed, panting.

"He is, but I’m not sure I’m going to live through all this excitement," Mary said and giggled. "Tell me the rest of today is going to be calmer, please."

"Can’t never tell what will happen next around here," Rachel affirmed, laughing.

　

　

　

Limning A Controversy

by

This article, by Erin McKean, originally appeared on The Boston Globe site on 9/19/10. It will be of interest to any writer who’s ever wrestled over word choice: how esoteric is too esoteric?

It is probably a bit too harsh to call those upset by The Baltimore Sun’s recent use of the word limn in a headline word-haters, but I assume they’d be even more offended by the fancy word misologists.

If you didn’t catch the (admittedly brief) controversy, it went a bit like this.

On Sept. 7, The Baltimore Sun used the word limn in a front-page headline (“Opposing votes limn difference in race”). That same day, Carol N. Shaw sent a letter to the editor complaining about the paper’s use of the word, calling it “unbelievably arrogant and patronizing” to use a word that she, having graduated magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Maryland, didn’t immediately understand.

Although the Sun has used the word limn twice before in headlines (and 47 times, total, in the paper’s history), those previous uses didn’t occasion much, if any, comment. The Sun’s level-headed and pragmatic grammar and usage blogger, John McIntyre, supported the use of limn in the headline, especially as it’s one of the limited stock of short verbs in English that are (as he put it) “neither scatological nor obscene.”

At first glance, it’s hard to see why limn should be considered verba non grata: It’s related, etymologically, to illuminate, and has been in use in English since the 1400s, at first to mean “to paint with gold or bright color” (as in illuminated manuscripts) and then (metaphorically) to mean painting a picture in words. That metaphorical use has proven to be irresistible to book reviewers, especially: Michiko Kakutani, the book reviewer for The New York Times, has been criticized for overuse of limn.

 

Read the rest of the article on The Boston Globe site.