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 |  The Journey of a Writer. Techniques and commentary about the craft of writing and life. |
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This is a book about my life's journey. I didn't want to do another diary. Instead I want to muse about odd thoughts that pop up in my mind and remember things from the past that I haven't really told to anyone before. Perhaps even talk about the craft of writing from time to time. I hope you'll meander down the path with me for a spell and see where we go. ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only **
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| I love podcasts. They are free of charge, come in a wide variety of talk and music formats and I always keep my trusty iPod Touch loaded with the latest of my subscriptions. I listen to podcasts about the craft of writing when I’m out walking my dog, or on a long commute to work. I thought that I’d take a moment to share a few of the ones that I listen to. None of these podcasts approached me to review them, they are ones that I found either by word of mouth among my writer friends or stumbled upon on my own. I hope you enjoy them as much as I have. I Should Be Writing This one is one of the first podcasts that I ever subscribed to. It is a long one, but it showcases the personality of writer and podcaster Mur Lafferty. The podcast gets into the nitty gritty of what it takes to be a successful writer. If you have the time to listen, it is one worth popping into your iPod. The Creative Pen Podcast I have been a fan of JoAnne Penn for many years. I follow her written blog regularly and I occasionally listen to her podcast when I find the time. This is a podcast that is full of helpful advice for writers that goes beyond the basics. If you are new to writing genre podcasts, this is one of the ones you should try first. Reading and Writing Podcast This is a author interview podcast by Jeff Rutherford is chock full of interviews by many recognizable authors. The podcasts tend to be short, only around 15 minutes, but you hear plenty of information during that time. This is a good one for readers since it helps to introduce new authors to you that you may not heard of before. Helping Writers Become Authors The podcasts are very short, less than 10 minutes each. If you are a writer on the go, this short format might appeal to you. The topics covered are story arcs, finding inspiration for your stories, and other craft issues that all writers face. The Dead Robot’s Society This is an all purpose podcast about the craft of writing, interviews with authors, and book reviews. It tends to be one of the longer podcasts in the writing genre, averaging between an hour to 90 minutes. Still, there is plenty of information packed into the podcasts and it is worth playing on your long commute if you have time to fill. Writing Excuses I’ve become a fan of this writing podcast featuring Brandon Sanderson and his co-hosts Mary Robinette Kowel, Howard Tayler, and Daniel Wells. It is a short 15 minutes and covers writing craft techniques of a slightly more advanced nature and plenty of science fiction related story ideas to play with. There is also a writing prompt at the end. Give it a try. I think you’ll be pleased. |
| Nanowrimo is a wonderful month of the year. You join together with other writers to write that novel that has been inside you all your life. One of the other aspects I enjoy about Nanowrimo are the forums at nanowrimo.org. There are a myriad of topics discussed from story adoptions, cafes where you chat with other writers your own age and recommendations about software, hardware, and resources for writers. One thread that caught my eye was about the favorite writing programs used by my fellow wrimos. I will be listing the top five below and giving my opinion about each one. I am not being asked by the company to write a review or paid any money to do so. This is simply my own view on each of the programs. Scrivener $45 PC or Mac Of all the writing programs out there, Scrivener has taken Nanowrimo by storm. The company makes both a Mac and a Windows version of the program, with an iPad version on the way. The program allows you to organize your files in a myriad of ways. You do not have to write from beginning to end as you did the past with word processors and there are plenty of features that make this program ideal for writing novels. One my personal favorites is the project target where it tracks my daily word count and the entire word count of the project. The program does not have an easy learning curve. You will need to ease into the program, grow used to it and explore the hundreds of features to find the subset that works best for your writing style. If you are a participant of Nanowrimo, you can get a 20% off coupon for the program and if you write the full 50K words and “win”, you will be given a 50% off coupon for the program. This year, there is a new Timeline program called Aeon that integrates with Scrivener to add to its functionality. If you win at Nanowrimo, there is a discount to purchase the Aeon Timeline program as well. If you are a regular reader of my blog, you will realize that Scrivener is my writing tool of choice. In fact, I’m writing this blog post with it. I first learned of Scrivener via my first Nanowrimo and I used my first win to purchase the program the follow year when it finally came out of beta testing. YWriter Free PC While YWriter is similar to Scrivener in the way that it organizes your work, it has fewer bells and whistles. For some people this is a positive aspect, making the learning curve of using YWriter much easier. The program is also free to download, which for some makes it a real writing winner! I have a wrimo friend that uses this program for her writing exclusively and really seems to love it. The price is certainly right! MS Word Price varies, starts at $99 for student version PC MS Word is the old gold standard of writing programs and most writers do have a copy of it on their computers. It is expensive, but because of its universality, it is a program that is recommended to keep in your tool box. A few aspects about Word that make it a little more difficult is that you can’t organize your files in a binder, you must organize them in your computer’s file program. For me, this meant that sometimes my projects got lost. However, I find that as I write professionally, there are times when a client requires the file to be in MS Word. For this reason, I do keep the program on my desktop. Write or Die $10 PC, Mac, or Linux This word processor has a built in timer. When you stop writing, it creates annoying situations to prod you back into writing. Many wrimos love this program because it boosts their word count. It is certainly inexpensive enough and works on many platforms. I have used this program myself and find it fun to use, but I wouldn’t use it as my everyday writing program. It is more something that I pull out for Nanowrimo only. What is your favorite writing program? |
| A writer’s platform is centered on their blog or website. All channels lead back to it and it is the cornerstone of all the social media “legs” that prop it up, such as Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, and Twitter. Yet, there is another “leg” an author should add to his writer’s platform: Klout, the most overlooked and unappreciated service on the Internet. Many authors view Klout as a popularity contest worthy of an eye-roll and a snort of derision. “Why would I need to waste my time on gaining a number that measures my social media popularity? Isn’t that too high school for me to worry about?” Yes and No. Like it or not, Klout is becoming a factor in many of the third-party services used to manage your writing platform or to find writing clients via social media. In these services, the Klout Score is offered to the author as a way to evaluate twitter or other social media followers. You will find it used in Wikipedia, LinkedIn Job Titles, +K, Odesk, Hootsuite, Tweepi, and the Bing search engine. Whether we wish it or not, Klout is slowly gaining favor as a means to measure your influence in social media. This number may translate into dollars when it comes to sales. It is not a perfect system, but it does give others a sense of how much influence you exert in the social media world. How to Start with Klout. The first step in adding Klout to your writing platform is to sign up for a free account. Connect whatever social media networks you frequent. Klout supports Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, Foursquare, Twitter, Wikipedia and Instagram to create your Klout Score. As of 2013, after Microsoft invested in Klout, Bing was also added as a data influence to your Klout Score. You can also link up YouTube, Flickr, Blogger, Tumblr, Last.fm, and WordPress, but at present, these networks are not part of the algorithm that determines your Klout Score. Consider them to be optional. The Klout Score ranges from 1 to 100, with the higher scores equaling a higher ranking in the users online influence. Of all the networks, Twitter is the one that Klout looks at the most closely and I would recommend that, at bare minimum, you have a Twitter account to link to before you start your Klout account. Klout measures influence by using the data from Twitter, such as your follower number, retweets, list memberships, how many spam/dead accounts are following you, how influential the people that retweet you are and your unique mentions. This information is blended in with the data from your other accounts to get your final score. The average social media user has a score in the high 30s to low 40s. Some authors believe that posting a thousand times and getting a few responses will raise their Klout Score. This is not the case. Klout doesn’t measure how much someone talks, but more about how many people listen and respond. Keep that in mind as you work on increasing your social media standing and your Klout Score. Set It and Forget It Once you have your Klout account set up it will give you your first Klout Score. Your score is based on your interactions for the past 90 days. Don’t be upset if your first score is low. This will change gradually over time as you work on the other legs of your writing platform. Don’t spend much time looking at Klout and worrying over your score. Think of it as a stock market with its ups and downs, it is more a long term response than short term. As you build your Twitter, Facebook and Google+ presence, your Klout Score will naturally rise. I check mine once or twice a month. It gives me an idea how my networks are doing at a glance. What I look for is a steady rise in the number that shows that my social media network and connections are growing at a slow, but healthy rate. If my Klout Score dips more than one or two points, I know that something is going wrong and I should look into my networks to see what is going on. Your goal is to build up a Klout Score that is 50+. This shows that you have an above average social interaction rate and are more likely to be able to market your book successfully. Several publishers are known to look at an author’s Klout Score to determine if they have enough social media connections in order to market their books. If your Klout Score is too low, they may not offer you a contract no matter how good your book is. People on Twitter and other services will be more likely to keep you in their networks because your score will enhance theirs and the ball keeps on rolling as your connections grow deeper and more complex on the Internet. So is Klout worth the effort? Considering that all it takes is the time to set up your free account, about a half hour at the most, and then letting it run in the background unattended, I say that it is. Klout also offers “perks” to those that sign up for the program and want to spend more time on the site. I feel that this aspect is optional. As a writer myself, I would rather put my time into writing for my blog and working on my books than seeking freebies on Klout, but this is a personal opinion. You might decide that free cups of coffee and other small goodies are worth the effort. |
| Every October I prepare for National Novel Writing Month. Nanowrimo promotes the act of writing 50K words toward the rough draft of a novel. People join together all over the world to support their fellow writers and to help all of us cross the finish line toward success. Most of the writers of Nanowrimo are beginners. The participation in Nanowrimo can be a submergence learning experience where new ideas, techniques, and tools are all explored at a rapid rate to get the beginner writer off in the right direction. Although I am now a published writer, I still look forward to Nanowrimo because it gives me that huge energy boost and camaraderie that keeps me going on a new project. One of the main things that I do to prepare for the event is to put together a writing kit. It allows me to participate in the local write-ins that take place at various hotel lobbies, coffeehouses, and libraries. Every writer has a unique kit that they assemble to aid them in the writing process. I start out my writing kit with a designated bag. I will keep this bag packed with all my writing gear at all times. It allows me to pick up the bag and go on a moment’s notice. I know that everything I will need will be available in the bag. I’ve used everything from a grocery sack to a cloth tote bag. My current writing kit bag is a Solo Laptop Tote. It looks like leather and is stylish, but not extremely expensive or heavy. It is large enough to hold all my gear and offers my electronic devices a bit of padded protection. Any laptop bag or backpack should work for this purpose. Next, I pack in my Alphasmart Neo. I prefer the Alphasmart to a laptop for drafting. An Alphasmart has been my go to device for Nanowrimo for the past four years. I started with a $30 Alphasmart 3000 for my first Nanowrimo write-ins because at the time I could not afford a laptop computer. The AS3K has a run time of 700 hours on 3 AA batteries. Basically, I pop in the batteries and I’m good to go for the year. The screen is LCD and easy on the eyes, unlike bright computer screens or tablets, and it has no Internet capability. Unless I deliberately turn on a device to access the Internet, such as my cell phone, I am not distracted by Facebook or other on-line time wasters. I credit the AS3K for helping me reach my 50K word goal for the first time. The following year, I upgraded to the Alphasmart Neo. The Neo has a more ergonomic keyboard, the 8 built in files can hold more data and the screen is somewhat bigger than the AS3K. I find that my typing speed is faster on the Neo. It makes a great keyboard for computers and tablets, needing only an USB connection to operate. The Neo is about the size of a small Mac Air laptop, but is much lighter in weight and far more durable. I store the Neo in the laptop portion of my bag and I bring along a few accessories to go with it. I keep my USB printer cable in the bag, it is the way that my Neo accesses my computer at home. I use it to upload my writing at the end of each coffeehouse session. I also have a Mighty Brite Duet light system that I clip to my Neo in dark situations or to write at night when I’m camping. The Mighty Brite has two LED lights that can light up my keyboard evenly. It was originally designed to be a music stand light for musicians, but many Neo owners equip their digital typewriters with this light because the clip is strong enough to grip the back of the Neo’s housing. Finally, I bring along a rubberized lap board. It provides a grippy place to perch my Neo if I’m writing on my lap or gives a more stable surface for my device when writing on a table. The Neo never gets hot, but the bottom is a little slick. The board keeps my Neo from sliding off my lap. The board I use is a Logitech Portable Lapdesk. I bring several paper bound books with me. First is a composition notebook with the outline, character sketches and other notes for my novel. With it I have a pouch with a fountain pen and a Coleto Mult-pen for color coding. Perhaps it is old-fashioned, but I find that when I’m brainstorming new ideas, I do it better on paper. I index the front of my notebook so that I can easily find the sections inside where my notes are and I always have blank pages available for writing down new ideas on the fly. The other two books I bring are a Pocket Webster’s Dictionary and a Pocket Thesaurus. I like having the means to look up words without having to rely on electricity or wifi access in a pinch. The final device I like to bring is my iPod Touch with earbuds. Usually, the general din of the coffeehouse is fine as background noise, but sometimes the PA system is not playing something that I find pleasing. When you put on earbuds or headphones, people also take this as a signal that you do not wish to chat and you can carve out more writing time for yourself that way. My iPod Touch is set up with several apps that I use for research, including a dictionary, thesaurus and an app called Lists for Writers. I also carry a cell phone, but I tend to not bring it out unless absolutely necessary because it is too easy to pull out a game or to read Facebook when I do so. All writers have unique items that they like to bring to write-ins during Nanowrimo. The key is to keep all the items in a single, portable, bag and only bring what is necessary to promote good writing habits while you are away from home. Do keep in mind that local write-ins are a great place to talk about writing and gain advice from your fellow writers. Do not close yourself up completely when you attend a write-in. Most of the habits that I have as a writer were learned as a Nanowrimo participant. Open yourself up to the information available during the November writing push and most of all, have fun! |
| Take a word. Place that word in the center of a sheet of paper and circle it. Let the word tease your brain. Allow related ideas, words or concepts to be inspired by this word. Write down those new ideas around the word. Draw lines to connect them. Major categories of your ideas radiate from this central node to lesser categories and sub-branches, creating a spider’s web of images, colors and text. The final form might seem to be a jumble, yet it is a direct mirror to how the human brain thinks. A mind map is a diagramming tool and is used to generate, visualize and classify ideas as well as solving plot problems, and making decisions about which way a story should progress. Your map should be visually stimulating with color coded branches and boxes. When I’m first beginning a novel’s outline, I like to use mind maps to help generate characters and plot points. The character information will be plugged into various character sheets and the plot points and their branches are turned into outline bullet points. Overall Plot Mind Map Start with a central Node, the title of your book. Create Hubs around it: Characters, Timeline, Settings, Plot. In each hub, brainstorm ideas that fit in each category. Turn your map into a general outline. Next I generate mind maps for each of the points that I come up with in the hubs. Two examples are: Character Generation Mind Map Write the name of your character in the center of a sheet of paper. Around the name, write several hubs around the name: emotions, habits, relationships, location. Around each of these hubs fill in the related information. Take this mind map and transfer the information you’ve brainstormed into your character sheet. Keep the mind map as a reference in the file with the character. Plot Generation Mind Map Think of an moment in time that will happen in your novel. Create hubs around your central event node. Hubs: Characters in event, new events that spawn, emotions felt, character growth connected with event. Link each events node in a loose timeline to create a rough plot outline. I am a paper person and write my mind maps in a composition notebook with my fountain pens. However, there are several programs that will create mind maps that are not only neatly printed, but will transfer directly into Word documents or into your Scrivener research files. One of the benefits of using these programs is that you can convert your mind map into an outline form in the program and plug this directly into Scrivener. I have included a review of five of the the mind mapping software programs below. I have not been approached by any of the makers of these programs to review their software, this is simply my own recommendation. All of them are either free or have a basic starting program that is free of charge. Freemind This was the first mind map program that I used when I started creating the maps. The program is free and easy to learn. I find that it is still somewhat linear in design and relies mainly on text. However, you can color code the text and branches and it does create a neat looking map. I can recommend it, but I do not find it as visually appealing as some of the other programs that are available on the Internet today. Xmind I love the visual maps that this program creates. While it still retains the text based aspects of other software mind maps, it includes enough graphics to personalize your maps and make them more into the visual tools you need to create characters and plots. The program also will export your maps in a myriad of formats, such as Microsoft Word, Microsoft PowerPoint, PDF, Text, RTF, HTML, PNG, JEPG, GIF, BMP, and Freemind, making it easy to integrate with MS Office or Scrivener. The program has a basic version that is free and a paid upgrade if you need more features. However, I find the free version seems to work well enough for most uses. MindMeister This mind map software is probably the most minimalist in the list, but sometimes being simple is an asset. You log into the service and can create a fully functional mind map using directional arrows and the insert key to add your nodes. Once you complete your basic mind map, you may export the file to a text outline, PDF, JPG, PNG, or GIF. If you choose to upgrade from the free version, it gives you the ability to export your maps to Freemind and you can make your map searchable. TheBrain Many people say that is is one of the more intuitive mind maping software systems available today. I enjoyed the free seminars on how to use the program to not only brainstorm ideas, but to use “your online brain” to keep your information handy and to use as a planner. This is another program that offers a free version and a paid one. It is compatible with Windows, Mac and Linux. Prezi Prezi is rather new to me. It is a mind map and yet it plays like a powerpoint presentation. You can add in text boxes, videos, or images to serve as your nodes and hubs. I found it fun to use as a general mind map, but I can see more applications for the program as you learn to use it. This mind map program is only online. If you use the free version, all your data is searchable on the internet, so I would not recommend it to be used for anything you wish to keep private. The paid version offers more security for your data. |
| The Los Angeles Times Book Festival is the largest book event in California. It is speculated that 150,000 people come to the festival, located on the campus of USC, to partake of poetry, music, authors and celebrities. The event is a maze of author panels, book signings, book sellers, poetry readings and music that it would be easy to become lost in the sea of people and books, like drifting flotsam. Although I’ve been a bibliophile most of my life, I have never attended a book festival before. When my writing friends spoke of forming a carpool to the event, I felt intrigued and eager to attend. There were four of us hearty souls on a journey of discovery, all piled into our friend’s comfortable van. On the way to Los Angeles, we spoke about tickets to the many events, which booths we wanted to visit and where we would meet up at the end of the day. The weather was warm and sunny, but not with the bite of heat that Southern California is known for. I had armed myself with a wide brimmed sun-hat, plenty of sunscreen, and a backpack filled with granola bars and bottles of water. My day began at one of the ticket booths, gathering the needed print-outs to the panels I had selected to attend. Many had been marked as sold out on-line before the event, but I discovered that not only were the tickets free on walk up, but all the events that I thought I could not attend were now available. With undisguised greed, I accepted the free tickets before my friend and I rushed off to our first event. As we hiked across the campus, I was reminded of my first days as a college freshman, my nose tucked in a map and a confused, lost expression on my face. My friend and I became misplaced near the poetry stage, where performance poets were reading for a small morning crowd and then wandered to a nearby book signing booth where volunteers were stacking novels in preparation of the first signings of the day. Books by Carol Burnett, the famous comedienne and actress were everywhere in the booth. At this point, we realized that we had gone the wrong way. Making a quick course correction, we managed to slip into the back seats of our selected panel, Fiction: Setting and Story. The panelists were Jami Attenberg, Kevin P. Keating, Michael Lavigne and Maggie Shipstead. They spoke about how they developed the ideas for the settings of their novels and answered a few questions of the 200 or so attendees of their panel. It was not a writing workshop, more of an expression of what they did as authors and details about their books. Afterward, they were ushered by handlers to their book signing booth where I’m sure they sold many copies of their books to the audience. I had a little time before the next panel started, so I stopped for lunch at the row of food trucks that had come to the campus that day. There was a wide selection of choices from burgers to pita sandwiches and salads. My friend and I managed to find a shady table in the pavilion set up on the campus track to enjoy our lunch. The springy feel of the track under my feet made me feel as if I could propel myself into flight; Only the best running surfaces for team USC. I noticed there was a police presence assembling near the food trucks, mainly officers on horseback. Four of them had pulled up their horses in a row and were allowing two children to pet the horse’s noses. As I made a point to pass by in front of the horses, knowing better than to walk behind a horse’s rump, I noticed that in addition to the usual firearms, each officer had what appeared to be a sword near the pommel of their saddle. On closer inspection it proved to be a long ivory hued club with a carved hilt. Most curious. I had comic visions of LAPD officers, as samurai warriors, chasing evil doers at the festival with their wooden swords. Yet, I was also comforted by the officers presence due to the recent bombing at the Boston Marathon. This was a large public event and it could be a terrorist target. The next panel I attended proved to be my favorite of the day. It was entitled Fiction from the 22nd Century and featured science fiction authors: Austin Grossman, Scott Hutchins, Lydia Netzer and Robin Sloan. Again, this was not a writing workshop, but authors speaking about a topic as it pertained to their own writing. The topic was about how speculative fiction has changed from the golden age of science fiction to today, where authors do not attempt to predict what is to come, but instead explain the ramifications of science in our current lives. Being a science fiction writer, I found the topic to be quite applicable to my own writing and found myself eager to take notes with my fountain pen. The next event was to hear author Orson Scott Card interviewed by Aaron Johnston. Two of Mr. Card’s novels are on my favorite list: Ender’s Game and Speaker for the Dead. I ended up being disappointed by this interview because the author was extremely focused on the filming of his novel, Ender’s Game, and his day of playing a bit role in the movie instead of speaking about writing. Still, I was able to get a sense of the man’s personality and a few thoughts about how he viewed his writing and his career. I noticed that the authors that he listed as his greatest inspiration were the same as my own. I caught the tail-end of the word stylings by Javon Johnson, two-time National Poetry Slam champion and USC Professor, who was performing his poetry on the main stage and getting the crowd involved with his act. The cadence of his words were comical and yet thought provoking. There were an astounding number of book vendors selling every sort of book you could imagine on the pedestrian walkway under the shade trees. Booths that specialized in indie authors were the most numerous. There were also several writer’s groups that offered book signings by their members; Murder, We Wrote and the Independent Writers of Southern California were the two that caught my eye. Both are local writer’s groups in the Los Angeles area. The most attractive booth was the Jane Austen Society of North America who were selling fanfiction Austen titles and promoting their local chapter in Pasadena. Inside the booth were hung Regency style costumes and the tables were draped with lace. You could almost believe that Jane herself was about to appear for a book signing of Pride and Prejudice. I ended my day at the booth of Red Phoenix Books. My friends Greta Boris and DeAnna Cameron were both holding book signings there. Greta writes non-fiction about fitness and DeAnna is a steampunk and historical fiction novelist. Both reported a busy day and plenty of visitors. Red Phoenix Books is owned by Claudia Alexander, a scientist who publishes not only a range of science books aimed at children, but also several steampunk novels. I was pleased to have a chance to chat with Claudia about steam engines and how to better understand this technology when writing Steampunk fiction. There is nothing like having a JPL scientist to ask a few questions of. By this time, the festival was winding to its close. One by one, our foursome met up at the Red Phoenix Booth. We returned to the valet parking station to retrieve our vehicle. Once more we journeyed on, out of the city and back home, each recounting different tales of our day at the Los Angeles Times Book Festival. |
| November is Nanowrimo month and like many writers, I’m busy plugging away at my great American novel. My machine of choice on the go is the Alphasmart Neo combined with a Logitech rubber lap board and a Mighty Bright dual lamp light. The only drawback to the Neo is that it does not have a means to download text onto the cloud since it was originally designed before such systems existed. Pen and paper is still a common choice for writers as well, but I’ve noticed that a growing number of participants have been turning to tablets combined with blu-tooth keyboards to write their novels. Whether you choose an iPad or an Android based tablet, writing with apps that are geared more for the writer instead of the casual phone user is to be preferred. The following are a few writing apps that I’ve seen other writers use at coffeehouse write-ins. Werdsmith Free or upgrade to Pro for $2.99 This is an app that purports to “turn your iPhone or iPad into a portable writing studio”. It does have a word count feature and is a good basic writing app. It has none of the frills you would find on a true computer, but for writing a rough draft on the go, you don’t always need that. Daedalus Touch $4.99 If you are looking for a text editor that is simple to read and has a visual organization, Daedalus Touch might be for you. This is an iPad app which features distraction free writing, huge import/export options including epub, textExpander and Markdown support, and best of all it includes dropbox sync. Write $2.99 One of the more recommended writing apps by my friends that use android tablets is Write. It has a minimalist text editor interface which makes it great for taking notes, writing chapters and it imports/exports to Dropbox and Evernote among others. It has a word count feature which is necessary for Nanowrimo, and a search function for your notes. CNET calls it the “best android notepad apps for students”. Nanoprogress Free One of the features of Nanowrimo is the word count graph on the website that helps to motivate you to reach your goals. However, what if you wanted to work on Camp Nanowrimo in June or August or simply have a similar graph to motivate you at other times of the year. This is the app that will do it for you. It is a simple, free app for your Android tablet that will help you keep on track at any time of the year. These writing apps are only to get your started. There are a huge number of apps for your iPad or Android out there to help you write novels, blog posts, and journal entries. Look for apps that feature a word count, easy import and export of your text to your desktop, laptop, or the cloud of your choice, and have an interface that is as distraction free as possible. With these apps in your toolbox, you can win Nanowrimo! |
| I had a dream. An idea for a novel burst into my mind one night and it would not let me go. I had not written a story in over a decade and considered myself long past the point where being a writer was an option for a career choice. I was an artisan jeweler and gemologist. I published articles, but they were non-fiction pieces about jewelry making, stones, or antique jewelry. However, the siren song of a novel was an earworm. It sang to me in my sleep. It consumed my thoughts during the day. Finally, I could bear it no longer. I started to write it down. I haven’t stopped writing since. When we start out as writers, we consider it a hobby. We do it in our free time, enjoy the process of creation, and hope that others appreciate our efforts. Then we gain encouragement and start to consider becoming a writer as a profession. What might that life be like? We dream of sleeping in late, typing on our computer in our bathrobe, and being able to travel to book signings with adoring fans. A life that is the path less taken. The question becomes, how do we function as writers day to day? What changes to we need to make in order to transition from a day job where you work for an employer to become a successful, self-employed writer? A Dedicated Workspace Many writers benefit from having a specific area set aside in their homes that is set up as their workplace. Perhaps a spare bedroom is set up as an office complete with a desk, computer and research materials or perhaps simply an unused corner of a larger room. When you set up a dedicated workspace in your home for writing, it tells the other members of your family that this space is off-limits for other tasks. My first workspace was a modest table in my bedroom. The table held a desktop computer, a fax machine, and an area for writing in notebooks. Inexpensive wire cubes served as my organizer to create vertical storage. Years later, when my husband and I were able to afford our house, I left my little table behind and gained one of the smaller rooms of our new home as my own studio workspace. I did not have a large budget to spend, so I bought a cheap particle board desk to hold my desktop computer and a folding table where I clamped a board from the lumber yard to become my jewelry workbench. Eventually, I added a used jeweler’s bench so I could forge metals, hang a flexshaft and gain more space for my ever growing pile of specialized jeweler’s tools. I’m shifting gears once more and changing the room again. I put in a modern glass L shaped desk for my computer, notebooks, and drawing supplies and removed the old table and board. My studio now allows my writing to take more precedence in my work flow and the jewelry making is secondary. The desk has a more professional and mature look, making the room a true office space, and I feel that removing much of the clutter of my jewelry supplies from sight will be an aid to my production of articles, short stories, and novels. I will not be embarrassed to bring a guest in here now and have a comfortable chair to offer them to sit in or use the chair myself for reading. Limit Interruptions One of the main habits I use as an artisan and writer is to set up a work schedule for myself. Otherwise it is easy to fall into the habit of puttering in your home. It is important to set up certain times in the day to write and then make sure you are seated in your dedicated workspace and writing at that time. Your family and friends need to learn that this is your work time and that you need to be able to work in peace without interruptions just as if you were going to a physical office outside your home. If you set up a schedule and post it on the refrigerator or perhaps a joint google calendar that everyone in your family is aware of, it will be easier to arrange for this necessary time to get your work done. For physical interruptions, being able to close an office door can be helpful. When it is the phone that is the problem, using caller ID and voice mail to screen calls can keep your down time to a minimum. I will always take a call from my husband during the day, telemarketers not so often. I have found that once I set up my working space in a spare room and had the ability to close the door, I was able to gain the quiet time I needed to work. Since I have an artisan jewelry business in addition to my writing, I divide my time between my two jobs. I generally work on articles for magazines, ghost writing, blog posts, and other non-fiction works in the morning. My afternoons are spent at my jeweler’s bench making stock or managing the tasks of my home such as cleaning or shopping. Night time is when I feel the most creative and that time is reserved for short story and novel writing. My weekends are often spent away from home at conventions, festivals, and renfairs were I sell my jewelry, however I am not away every weekend and do schedule in time to be with my husband and have fun. Sometimes I feel that I work more hours than if I had a regular nine to five job away from home, but I do have the ability to take off on a whim and go to the beach or go shopping mid-week when I do not have to deal with crowds. I often work in my slippers and my co-worker is my faithful dog. I am responsible for my own destiny and I embrace the freedom that this gives me. It is a trade-off, relative security for personal responsibility, but one that I value. Limit Distractions While working at home is now more common, you will still find people will believe you are “available” because you are home. Family and friends will ask you for favors during the day because they do not perceive what you are doing is a real job. Learn to say no in a firm, but polite manner. Remind them that what you do is as real job as the one that they do and that you need time to work. Once a few royalties or paychecks come in, this perception that you are “playing at home” will diminish. I also find that because I am away at venues on weekends to sell my jewelry as later I will be at book festivals to promote my books, I tend to miss out on family and friend’s social gatherings more than most people. When I mention that I work on the weekend, I often receive a groan of sympathy, as if this were a heavy burden. To me it is not a burden at all, but it does involve some acceptance of sacrifice on my part. In this age of technology where we are all interconnected via our smartphones, tablets, and computers, it is easy to allow this information submergence to cut into your writing time. For me, the most insidious distraction is the internet. Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and forums are all interesting reads. My ebooks are just a finger touch away. I might innocently start to read a forum or two and the next thing I know I’ve lost several hours of prime work time. I’ve developed several strategies to combat this issue. In my office, I have learned to use a timer system. I work without turning to the internet except for direct research of an article for a certain amount of time that I’ve set. Once the buzzer goes off, I’m allowed a short period of time to look at Facebook or forums as a reward. I also limit the pulling of email to three times a day. Once in the morning, in the early evening and late at night. Another thing that I will do is to leave my office behind. I pick up my Alphasmart Neo or my NEC MobilePro which has no internet access along with my writing journal for research notes and go to the library, my local Starbucks or the park to write. I set a writing goal for the day and do not come home until I’ve met it. I am only human. I do succumb to the distractions of the internet more than I should, but I do find that these methods help a great deal. Make Time To Socialize The work of a writer is somewhat lonely. It is important to reach out via networking, both for marketing your work and for making friends to enrich your life. I belong two groups. The first is Nanowrimo and the other is Independent Writers of Southern California. Nanowrimo is filled with wannabe writers, but there are many accomplished writers that have come up through the system that still participate in the event or now offer to mentor young writers. Through Nanowrimo I’ve learned many basic writing tips, about new software and tools for writing, and gained encouragement to continue forward with my writing goals. While most of the activities with Nanowrimo is in November, there are enough events scattered through the year to keep you active. The Independent Writers of Southern California or IWOSC is a large society of professional writers, most of whom are published, and it is a place to meet writers or to attend panels, lectures or workshops. Members come from all over the state of California and the general meeting often has 150 to 200 people in attendance. IWOSC also offers a reading series for members. I find that the information I gain from each group is different. The professionals are more old-school both in how they market their books and in the tools that they use. The Wrimos are more contemporary with their methods and writing tools, more focused on the joy of writing than on making a living with their words. Between the two I find that there is a delightful balance of information. This Is Your Life The life of a writer can be a solitary experience and it is not for everyone. You need to have self-discipline and a sense of self-reliance to be successful. You must live in a constant balancing act between putting the words on the page and getting out of your office to meet with the local community. It is likely you will work longer hours than your friends with “normal” jobs and you will face rejection and low pay for many years until you create a catalog of titles to sell. Is it all worth it? Speaking as someone who has been self-employed for most of her life, I believe that it is. I enjoy a lifestyle of freedom that many people only dream about. I can schedule a day off to go to the beach with no one looking over my shoulder to ask why I am not in my office. I travel, meet interesting people with wildly varied viewpoints, and yes, I do work in my slippers on occasion. The dream is now a reality that I have created. It is life as a writer and artist. Will you live it too? |
| There is an old adage, “Practice makes perfect”. As an artisan, I create product at my jeweler’s bench a few times every week. I either make simpler production pieces that keep my booth’s jewelry racks filled, or spend more intensive creative time working on complex showcase pieces that are displayed in protective glass cases. I’ve learned that as long as I keep making a few items as I go along, I never come to a point where I am unprepared for a sales venue or unable to offer a few new designs to my customers. Practicing my jewelry craft on a regular basis, attending jewelry making workshops to increase my skills, and studying gemology has all combined to make me a reasonably successful artisan jeweler. Writing, as it turns out, follows a similar business model. To be a successful writer, you need to write something every day to sharpen your skills. I schedule time to work on my novel a few days each week and consider it as I would the time I put in on complex jewelry items. A long term fiction novel takes more time to dream up, to figure out the connections between the characters, and to create a satisfying experience for the reader. On days when I am not working on my novel, I am writing posts for No Wasted Ink or articles for magazines. I consider these works to be like the simpler jewelry pieces, they are popular with the public, I sell a great many of them, but they don’t take quite as much mental exercise as a complex focal piece. Between these projects and commenting on forums and blogs, I tend to write for a few hours every single day. Writing is like breathing. It is what I do. If you don’t have a blog to spur you to write on a regular basis, the next best thing is to start a journal and use writing prompts to fire up your creativity and hone your writing skills. Your journal can be on your computer or perhaps in a paper bound book such as a Moleskine. No one needs to see your short exercises, but if you have an inspiring day, that prompt could be the beginning to a good short story, novel or article. Your daily writing habit does not need to be long, perhaps a few hundred words at best. You’ll find that as you write, over time your word count will increase and finding topics or stories to write about will be easier. |
| I was seated at my local Starbucks coffee house the other day and fell into conversation with an artist. I was asked, as our conversation went on, “So what is your novel about?” I started to think about all the threads that run through my current novel and was at loss for words. This is a common enough question that I will face as an author and it is one that should be addressed even before a novel is finished. What I needed was a one or two sentence summary of what my story is about, one that is designed to capture the interest of a reader or listener. It is known as a “hook line” and beyond its use in conversation, it also serves as a pairing with the book cover in online catalogs to entice readers to buy your book. What are the Elements of a Hook Line? Characters – Who is the main character of your story? What does that main character want? What is his/her main goal? Conflict – Who is the antagonist of the story? How does this villain stand in the way of the main character obtaining their goal? Originality – What makes your book different from others? What is the unique element of your story that makes it stand out? Setting – State the location, the time period or perhaps the genre if it is not obvious. Action – Your hook line needs to have an action that catches the reader’s attention. A little detail can go a long way. Examples of Good Hook lines from movies, also known as Loglines: BRIDGES OF MADISON COUNTY (Clint Eastwood, 1995) – An Iowa housewife, stuck in her routine, must choose between true romance and the needs of her family. FOR A FEW DOLLARS MORE (Sergio Leone, 1965) – A man with no name and a man with a mission hunt a Mexican bandit for different reasons. MIDNIGHT COWBOY (John Schlesinger, 1969) – Naive Joe Buck arrives in New York City to make his fortune as a hustler, but soon strikes up an unlikely friendship with the first scoundrel he falls prey to. LONE STAR (John Sayles, 1996) – A small town Texas sheriff, despite warnings not to, investigates a convoluted case, when a brutal predecessors’ remains turn up 40 years after he was supposedly run out of town. What are some common elements in these compelling loglines from famous movies? First, they mention the main character in some way. The main character is the star of the movie or the novel and needs to be someone that the reader can be interested in or they will not read the book. You do not always need to mention this character by name, but rather find a way to describe them to make them stand out as unique in the reader’s mind. Next, notice that in the examples, the location of the story is mentioned: Iowa, Mexico, Texas, or New York City. This helps to give the reader an idea of where or when this story takes place. Observe that the conflict that the main character will face is hinted at. A housewife must choose, a man hunts a bandit, an innocent man becomes a friend of a scoundrel, or a sheriff investigates a murder. This is exciting action. Hopefully enough of a conflict to interest a potential reader. Finally, an element of originality should be offered. This helps to off-set your hook line in the book catalog from all hundreds of other offerings in the book store. The next time I am at the coffeehouse and someone asks me what my novel is about, I might answer this: Alice dreams of romance, and when her handsome prince arrives, she follows him through the looking glass into a world of Victorian steam-powered engines, a mad queen, an assassin, and a charming rogue. Will she have the courage to be the heroine that Wonderland needs and find her heart’s desire? What will be your answer? |
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