Some years ago when I decided to take the plunge and become self-employed I was offered the chance of a little financial help and support from a local small business start-up unit. I had reservations about taking up the offer because most institutions don’t see ‘Writer’ as a career, more as a sign of self-delusion and possible mental instability. The financial carrots being waved by local and national government were, however, substantial enough for me to go through the motions at least.

My fears were largely confirmed when I found myself sat alone in a room with a grey looking man in a suit, drinking cheap instant coffee out of a plastic cup. I don’t think he’d read through my details in advance because when I explained what my ‘business’ was, he jumped both visibly and nervously. I realised that there was a gulf in understanding opening up between us when he said that I’d certainly ‘chosen an industry that was hard to break into’. At least he showed the courtesy of calling it an industry. While he sifted through his paperwork I pondered the word ‘chosen’. I’ve never felt I had a choice when it came to being a writer.
 
 
The writer’s life

In the end the business support was of little help – although he did explain that I would have to pay my own tax, not exactly a revelation. Perhaps business advice shouldn’t be aimed at us sensitive, artistic types; at least that was the impression I got from the advisor. Writing is, I’ll admit, a difficult industry to break into, but in the case of nearly all writers I’ve met along the way, I never did get the impression that they ‘chose’ it. In some cases, like my own, many just ended up giving in to writing, instead of having proper jobs like normal people! But if you are facing the fact that you no longer have the strength to resist the call of the writer’s life, where on earth to start? There are plenty of claims on the internet that you can make a living as a writer, working from anywhere in the world. They offer seductive images of the possibilities, but what’s behind this and is any of it really true?
 
 
Bloody Revolutions

The internet revolution evolves each day – if not hourly – and as Charles Dickens once put it ‘it was the best of times, it was the worst of times’. Revolutions are like that. For writers, the internet revolution is exactly that, the best and worst of times. While the internet has created a massive market for content – written content still being the basis for this new media – it has also created a whole industry full of pitfalls. To those contemplating the move into full-time writing, understanding what the opportunities are, and why they exist, can be very useful indeed. Content writing or web copywriting is about selling stuff, simple as that really. However, there are a huge range of techniques used by online marketing professionals to do so.
 
 
Research subjects

The techniques are varied and change as the internet changes. For those looking to become online copywriters researching the opportunities and techniques below is worth a little time:
 

 
There are probably as many routes into online copywriting as there are individuals working in the industry. It’s fast paced and changes constantly. While some sites claim that anybody can be an online writer this claim may be a little enthusiastic. Good writers will find it more straightforward than bad! If you are prepared to study, learn and practice you will in time find that success is possible and the rewards are, believe me, well worth the effort.
 
 
Chris Hoole provides copywriting services and more for Apple Copywriting.com If you would like to find out more information about Apple Copywriting visit their website at www.applecopywriting.com. They offer a no obligation quote to any visitor interested in their services.
 

Related posts:

1. How to Price Your Copywriting Services
2. Freelance Writers – How the Competition Can Increase Your Income
3. The Copywriting Market: How To Make The Most Of The Recession!
4. The Realities of Becoming a Writer
5. Online Freelance Writers – Make a Few Hundred Extra Dollars a Week With These Services
6. Five Ways to Shine as a Professional Writer

Writing can be a very simple process. You put pen to paper and watch what comes out. For many, it truly is that easy. For others, it’s a little bit more of a struggle. You stare at a blank piece of paper for awhile and wonder how you’re going to get any words on it.

Writing is about using your imagination. Focus not on the topic but how the topic makes you feel. Transport yourself to another part of the world. Close your eyes and pretend like you’re not sitting at your desk trying to write something. Think about the topic.

Now, open your eyes and write what you saw. As your hand connects with the pen you will likely be surprised that there are suddenly words sprawling across the page. You are using your imagination to form words that will ultimately lead to a really creative article. It really is possible but sometimes pressure is our worst enemy.

There are a few things that you can do to help get your imagination and your words working together to write creatively.
 
 
FIND YOUR VOICE
You need to find your voice. Everyone has one. This is how you’re going to be expressive within your article. You can write a fact-based article and still have some fun with it. Many people may be reading this and the only way that they’re going to get through the whole thing is if they are enjoying themselves while reading it.

You can be sarcastic, energetic, monotone or any other emotion as you are writing. It will come through in your writing so it’s important to actually be aware of it. You don’t want to sound monotone throughout the article or people will stop reading it. No one wants to be bored when they’re reading, even if it is about a boring topic.
 
 
DO YOUR RESEARCH
Whether you are writing fiction or nonfiction, you need to have your facts straight. You can still be imaginative, but if you write something that has any grounding into reality, you need to know what you’re talking about. If you make up information because it sounds good, people won’t trust you anymore and they will stop reading things that you write. Even if you think people won’t notice, you need to assume all of your readers are going to be experts about what you’re writing.

The research has to be done in such a way that you are weaving facts into your creative work. No one wants to have a bunch of facts spewed at them. They want to slowly learn about them throughout your witty article that has them wanting to keep reading. Otherwise, they could get the same thing from going to a trade journal or reading from wikipedia. Your job is to wow them with the facts.
 
 
WRITE, WRITE, WRITE
The more you write, the more you will want to write. If you get stuck on one thing, start writing about something else. Even if it’s a journal entry, write. It’s why so many writers have multiple projects going at once. It will get the creative juices flowing so that you are ready to take on the next article with much more vigor.

There are plenty of ways to stay active writing. You can write for work or for pleasure, or both. It’s important to write when you want to be a writer. It’s exercise, just like an athlete hits the gym every day, you need to hit the paper every day.

Anything’s possible with imagination but sometimes our head gets in the way. If our imagination and our words can pair up without interference, the results are often quite impressive.
 
Article by Alice McCoy. Alice’s father was a long-haul trucker and ever since a kid she’s been fascinated with that life. Although she stays at home with her kids and writes now, she is still involved by keeping an eye out for CDL jobs and writes about topics like commercial truck insurance quotes. One day she hopes to have her own rig.
 

Related posts:

1. 10 Words to Avoid When Writing
2. What Makes a Book a Best-Seller?
3. The Inner Critic Doesn’t Belong in the Creative Process
4. Marketing In A Recession: Why You Won’t Survive If You Stop!
5. Write And Grow Rich
6. Writer’s Block Is Only As Bad As You Let It Be

This Be My Guest Author Article is by Scott Rigby and Richard M. Ryan, Authors of Glued to Games: How Video Games Draw Us In and Hold Us Spellbound.

Games are powerfully motivating of deep engagement that can last for hours on end, day after day. The first step to really understanding how to manage gaming in your life (or that of a loved one) — and to identify when there may be a problem — is understanding what is really at the root of games strong motivational pull. It’s not some mystical force, or a secret desire to blow things up, as many non-gamers might fear. The research we’ve been doing for the last eight years, has helped to identify the basic psychology of game motivation and engagement. This serves as a critical foundation to understand the incredible “pull” of games, as well as serving as a guide for when addiction may be emerging.

Simply put, hundreds of motivational studies have demonstrated that we all have basic psychological needs for competence (a feeling of mastery, growth, and efficacy), autonomy (that sense of personal volition and feeling there are many interesting opportunities from which to choose), and relatedness (a feeling that “I matter” to others, and they matter to me). Decades of research have shown these needs are always operating, whether we’re playing games, at work, playing sports, or just being social. They are, in other words, fundamental or basic psychological needs.

Good games draw us in because they are designed to satisfy these needs really, really well. Specifically, they satisfy needs with immediacy, consistency, and density. Let’s talk about each of these briefly . . .

• Immediacy means that games are readily available. I bet all of us could be playing a video game — either on our phones or computers — within the next ten seconds if we wanted to. Sure beats the hour of driving just to get back and forth to the movies or out to the soccer field.

• Consistency means that games give us clear paths to success and achievement, and treat us fairly. A game doesn’t tell us we got passed over for promotion because of office politics, or benched during the baseball game unfairly. Games give us the rewards they promise, each and every time. And we can count on them in that way.

• Density means that games give us a rich field of opportunities to pursue, activities to undertake, and challenges to conquer. While “real life” often seems sparse, games are there to offer us this density as well as instant feedback that makes us feel effective and even important.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with games ability to satisfy us in these ways. In fact, it can make gaming a very rich and meaningful experience. But it is also true that we need to watch out for becoming over-involved with gaming. Since we now know why gaming is so compelling psychologically, we can look out for “warning signs” more effectively. Here are five tips:

1) Do you see a big “satisfaction gap?” — When you think about how needs are satisfied in your “real life” versus games, do games come out way ahead? In our research, we consistently find that over-involvement in games goes hand-in-hand with feeling a lack of basic need satisfactions for competence, autonomy, and relatedness in other areas of life, such as school, work, social relationships, and non-gaming hobbies and activities. The data suggest that if our basic needs are too sparsely satisfied by life, there may be a susceptibility to over-involvement in video games. Why might this happen? Well when life isn’t meeting our needs, the immediate and dense availability of satisfactions for competence, autonomy, and relatedness in games often become a stronger pull that draws us in too long and too often.

2) Are Games “Crowding Out?” — Do you miss deadlines at work or school because of gaming? Do you often choose to game rather than spend time with friends or family? One gamer I know reflected wistfully that he had missed most of the first five years of his daughter’s life because he spent so much time gaming. If you’re having these kinds of feelings about relationships, or not meeting other responsibilities because of playing video games, it is a sure sign that you might have a problem with too much gaming.

3) Are you feeling personal pressure, guilt or shame around your gaming? — It may sound like a funny thing to say that some gamers feel they “pressure” themselves into gaming, but it happens. There is a feeling that games are something you’re compelled to do, even if you don’t particularly enjoy or want to play at that moment. You may feel a sense of guilt or shame about firing up another game, but do so anyway. If this feels like a common experience for you, it is a sign that you are over-involved in gaming.

4) Are you playing four or more hours a day? — A simple rule of thumb is how much time you spend on average every week playing video games. We find that up until about 25 hours, there is no direct association between time spent playing, and negative feelings or decreased well-being. Above that line, however, we see a relationship begin to emerge between 25+ weekly hours, and bad outcomes. So as one quick check: How much time on average are you spending gaming each week? If it equals a half-time job or more — it really deserves a look.

5) Is gaming isolating important others? — While you are running around virtual worlds, perhaps in the company of dozens of other online friends, slaying dragons and completing missions, it is sometimes hard to remember that you are leaving the molecular world — and often the loved ones that are under your own roof — alone and isolated from you. If you are immersed in a fantasy world, you aren’t in this one. Be sure to check in with family and friends about this. Listen to them if they express concern or even some feelings of abandonment. If you feel you can’t respond to their requests to have more of your time, it is a sign you are too deeply involved with games.
 
 
© 2011 Scott Rigby and Richard M. Ryan, authors of Glued to Games: How Video Games Draw Us In and Hold Us Spellbound
 
 
About the Authors
Scott Rigby PhD, co-author of Glued to Games: How Video Games Draw Us In and Hold Us Spellbound, is founder and president of Immersyve, Inc., a research and consulting group specializing in the psychology of virtual worlds and interactive technologies. In addition to publishing scholarly research on human motivation, Dr. Rigby has himself developed interactive applications for entertainment (Sony, Warner Brothers), education (The Smithsonian Institute), and health care.

Richard M. Ryan, PhD, co-author of Glued to Games: How Video Games Draw Us In and Hold Us Spellbound, is a clinical psychologist and professor of psychology, psychiatry, and education at the University of Rochester, Rochester, NY. He is cofounder of the Self-Determination Theory and has published well over 300 scholarly articles in the areas of human motivation, personality development, and applied psychology.

For more information please visit http://www.gluedtogames.com/ and follow the authors on Facebook and Twitter

Related posts:

1. Author Interview: Michael Stevens, Author of Fortuna
2. Why We Doodle
3. Video: David Morrell talks about The Shimmer
4. The Sweet Success Of Team Building
5. Thanksgiving Focus Phrases That Work
6. Staying on The Funny Side of Thanksgiving

This Be My Guest article is by Dr. John Duffy, Author of The Available Parent: Radical Optimism for Raising Teens and Tweens.

We are on vacation in Florida with another family. Three young teenagers are on board, my 13-year-old included. A number of times over the past week, I have peered over to see each of their beautiful faces lost in a 3 ½ inch screen: a Nintendo DS, iPhone, iPod Touch, or any other thing!

One might be texting friends back home, another might be selecting a new song, while yet another is playing the latest downloaded game. There they were in the car last night, screens lighting their faces. There they were on the couch, in front of the giant TV screen! Even in bed, all faces illuminated, eyes entranced.

So how is a parent to counteract the draw of the tiny, sophisticated, intoxicating hand-held plaything?

Well, for one, recognize that if you can’t beat them, join them. Whatever it is that is displayed on that tiny screen, your teen is clearly engaged in it. Sit down with her. Have a look at the contraption. Ask what it does — teens love to be teachers. Most importantly, ask what your teen loves so much about it. This is a golden opportunity to connect, to get to know your teen better.

And you might want to write her a clever text once in a while: “How are you?” “What are you doing/listening to right now?” I worked recently with a father who took to writing his daughter an “I love you” text every day. He called me with glee the day he got one back.

You need to know that texting is the preferred mode of communication for many teens, whether we adults want that to be the case, or not.

Also, recognize your own addiction to the tiny screen. What I did not mention above is the myriad opportunity I have had to see adult faces lit up by an iPhone in the past several days. We serve as the strongest role models for our teens. Our screen time is seen as latent permission for their own.

Finally, you might want to engage your teen in a different way. For instance, my wife Julie and I designated yesterday’s lunch as a “No Screen Zone.” We engaged our teenagers in conversation. We talked about music, movies and politics. It was fun, and everyone was engaged and participating.

So make sure you protect some time together where all screens go dark.

 
© 2011 John Duffy, author of The Available Parent: Radical Optimism for Raising Teens and Tweens
 
 
Dr. John Duffy, author of The Available Parent: Radical Optimism for Raising Teens and Tweens, is a highly sought-after clinical psychologist, certified life coach, parenting expert, and proud parent. He has been working with teens, tweens, and their families for more than fifteen years. He has provided the critical intervention and support needed to help hundreds of families find their footing.

For more information please visit http://www.drjohnduffy.com and follow the author on Facebook and Twitter.
 

Related posts:

1. How I Nearly Killed My Wife’s Kindle Swiping At The Screen
2. Protecting Your Child From Cyber-Monsters
3. Having an Interest in the World
4. Connecting with Bloggers to Promote Your Book
5. Emotional Incest: Will He or She Change?
6. Book Excerpt: The Challenges of Blended Families

“This is a very subjective business . . .”
 
Are you just about sick of hearing that? How many rejections, critiques, or pieces of group criticism begin or end with that remark? And while perhaps meant to temper the above, we all know it’s a plot (sort of as we use in the South, “Bless her heart,” after trashing the bejeebus out of some character quirk).
 
Any creative endeavor, however, and especially writing, where you’re often relegated to one person’s opinion at a time, is very subjective. So, how do you know when to take the criticism, and when to reject it? Because what you do with the words from the book editor, literary agent, contest judge, or critique group most assuredly predicts your success.
 
Whether beginner or seasoned pro, we all need outside eyes. Many of my writers upon receiving rejections ask, “Is it the market, or is it my book?” The answer to that is of vital importance to your writing career, so let’s sift through, separating the wheat from the chaff.
 
Especially when first starting out, the critique from a writer’s group can seem very harsh. Sometimes the criticism may indeed be self-serving, being more about the person giving it than the work itself. But often, the folks who have been around the block a time or two want to help new writers along the path. The trick is to keep in mind the personalities involved, then weigh the validity of the comments. And listen to it all. Yes, you may dig through a ton of BS before finding a jewel, but that very gem may be the thing that pushes you over some creative hump. In the beginning, all of the skills and tools involved in book writing may seem overwhelming, but by listening to such critique, these skills become more accessible. As you progress down the writing path, critique serves as a sounding board, letting your know that indeed, you are on track. Or not, and need to go back to the drawing board.
 
The same holds true for a judge’s evaluation through a contest or conference. Usually the evaluator is a seasoned pro (a novel editor, etc.), and can identify strengths and weaknesses in a flash. I will say that I’ve judged a lot of conference contests, and some of the evaluators don’t give a piece five minutes. But most do. And before your ego reacts, try to stay objective to the subjective point of view, and look at the criticism from arm’s length. Does the person have a point? Is the writing flat? Are the characters thin? If you were reading your work from the standpoint of outside eyes, would you feel the same?
 
The brings us to the submissions to literary agents and editors. Everyone has probably gotten the form rejection, the “Not for me” standard line. The next step may be closer, but say, “I didn’t fall in love with x, y, z.” Followed of course with “This is a subjective business and another agent . . .” Even after you’ve become agented, you’ll get that ‘no’ from publishing-house editors. And taken one step further, once you’re published, some awful book review editor may slam you. The nerve! Again, these run the gamut, but hopefully they’ll respond more in-depth (just one reason why having a good agent is important).
 
As you sift through, does a pattern surface? Are many saying they loved x but were put off by y? Perhaps loved the prose, the voice, but the problems lay in the basic book development? If so, you’re getting there. Those problems are fixable, and doing so may be your ticket to success. If not, you may be facing something as simple (yet difficult) of not yet targeting the right house or agent with your work.
 
Again, listen to it all. I can’t say that enough. Much more worrisome than keeping your ego intact is to miss something that may be key to your book or story selling. In today’s insanely tough market, a work has to be more than perfect to sell; it has to shine above all the rest in order to make an editor fall in love. Remember, the editor who does so still has to convince both the editorial board and the sales’ reps of the book’s brilliance. Never has traditional publishing been more difficult. Never has it meant more as per prestige.
 
Which brings us to the crux. Creativity really is subjective, and in those murky waters lives the only true demon–the ego troll. Nothing is closer to our core than the stories we write. We’re not selling bread dough here; we’re selling work from our very souls. This leaves us so vulnerable that the ego naturally jumps up to provide at least some protection, and in doing so can undermine the very essence of what we’re doing. Getting that troll out of the way so that you can be objective can be the true beast. But you must do it.
 
I’ve worked with just about every kind of book author. And I’ve seen very talented writers fail because they believed their work was so pristine, so perfect, it needed no editing or revision. I’ve seen semi-talented (and you have to have some talent, but the rest is about skills and those can be learned) writers succeed because they were willing to set aside their egos, dig back in, learn from the critique and their mistakes, and write better.
 
The best way to deal with the ego troll is to look it in the face. Is your writing perfect? No. If honest, we all must answer that way. Can it improve? Of course. Does x agent or y editor or z critique group know anything? Hopefully. If not, why did you submit, join, etc.? It all comes back to you in the end. And even if you decide he/she/they were idiots (which surely they were!, as the old cliché goes (don’t let me writers know I’m using one!), even a blind hog finds an acorn now and then.
 
Put your ego on the shelf for an hour and look at your work as if it belonged to someone else. The validity of any critique (or lack thereof) will shine through. And some always exists, even in the most pedantic response. Your job is to find the subjective pearls, through your objective mind, and put those into practice. Sooner or later, that obnoxious phrase with which we began this will not come.
 
And that agent, editor, judge will simply say, “Yes.”
 
 
Susan Mary Malone (http://www.maloneeditorial.com) is a book editor who has helped over 30 authors get their books published with traditional publishers. Her professional background includes working as an editor, columnist & reporter. Malone’s edited books have been featured in Publishers Weekly & won numerous awards. Clients include NY Times Bestselling author Mary B. Morrison, & Essence Bestselling author Naleighna Kai, among many others. See her blog at http://www.maloneeditorial.com/blog/

Related posts:

1. Literary Agent Scams – How to Protect Yourself From Con Artists
2. How to Apply the Three Acid Tests of Persuasive Writing
3. Query Letter Writing Fact and Fiction
4. How to Format a Fiction Manuscript
5. Learning From Writing Contest Judges
6. How to Format A Query Letter

Summertime’s supposed to be when livin’ is easy. At least that’s what Billie Holiday sang in the classic George Gershwin song. The summer of ‘82 was not an easy livin’ kind of summer for me. The seemingly airless days blended together into a shadowy fog, ultimately besieging me.
 
The previous summer, my parents surprised me with a backyard cookout for my eighteenth birthday. It was festive; complete with balloons, streamers and friends. Mom later told me she wanted to create a special day for me that I’d remember when she was gone. I remember the taste of the bacon-wrapped hot dogs and the white double-layered cake with cream cheese frosting. And the smoky smell of the charcoal briquettes Daddy skillfully tended to, as well as the smear of coal he left on his shoulder when he ended a mosquito’s feeding frenzy. But most of all, I recall Mom’s laugh. I believe she enjoyed my birthday more than anyone.
 
“Mom, really? Pin the tail on the donkey?”
 
“It’s just a game.” Mom cackled. Her laugh always ended with a long, drawn out, “A-h-h.”
 
Although it’s a childhood game, we had fun. I understood Mom still thought of me as her little girl and always would.
 
“You couldn’t find your own butt if both hands were tied behind your back!” Daddy shook his head when I missed the donkey altogether. He loved to tease me and did it often. We even bobbed for apples, which helped cool us from the glaring southern sun. Yes, it was a memorable birthday. We played, gorged on food, and laughed. The following birthday would also be memorable, but in a different way. My mother wouldn’t be there.
 
 
***
 
Cancer, the evil monster, kidnapped my mother’s body in the spring of ‘80. It descended upon her body and viciously assaulted it for two years, but she wouldn’t allow it to consume her. During her ‘good days’ between chemotherapy and radiation sessions, she stayed active, participating in craft functions, directing the local YWCA and composing magical landscapes with her treasured oil paints. This evil monster even tried to take her painting away, making it difficult for her to endure the strong smell of the oils and turpentine, but she fought back by wearing a mask to block out the nauseating fumes.
 
After two years of holding her hostage, the evil monster finally demanded its ransom in the summer of ‘82. It promised to set her free if I agreed to spend the rest of my life without her. For the final month of her life, it held her in a coma, preventing her to even blink. I just couldn’t let her go. I wasn’t sure if I could live without her.
 
One sunny Saturday afternoon in June, I walked into Mom’s hospital room and sat beside her bed. The overwhelming scent of a rose bouquet on the window sill made me nauseous. Red roses were Mom’s favorite.
 
‘Daddy must have brought them. I don’t like them. They have the same stench as a funeral home.’
 
I grabbed a tissue from the bedside table and wiped the tears slipping from Mom’s unseeing eyes. The doctors said they were caused by the inability to blink, but I knew they were much more than that. They were pleas for me to let her go. I knew she was ready, but held on for me.
 
I sat alone. Mom’s body was there, but I didn’t feel her spirit. I longed to hear her over-zealous laugh with the drawn out a-h-h, but instead, I listened to the clamoring machines the evil monster afforded, and the rasping, burbling sounds in Mom’s chest.
 
‘Oh, those roses are going to make me ill.’ Thomas Moore’s poem, The Last Rose of Summer, came to mind. ‘Tis the last rose of summer, left blooming alone …’
 
I stared at Mom’s vacant eyes. I felt my own tears seep. Swallowing forcibly, I tried to keep the trickle from launching a dam break. I held her hand. Suddenly, I felt…something. It was Mom; she was there! She gripped my hand and slowly shifted her eyes to look at mine—and blinked. For the first time in exactly 30 days, she blinked. I stood and gazed.
 

“Mom?” My voice sounded foreign and high-pitched. An incredible knot rose in my throat, almost robbing my ability to speak.
 
Again, she blinked.
 
Strange, uncontrollable thoughts over swept me. ‘Does Mom recognize the pink sun-dress I’m wearing is the one she sewed for me? What will Daddy say when I tell him Mom heard me and gripped my hand… and blinked?’ It was the first time I felt her presence in a month. I knew it was time. Time to pay the ransom the evil monster demanded.
 
“Mom?” I waited to make sure the blank stare hadn’t returned. “Mom, it’s okay to go.” I secretly hoped a blinding light would suddenly shine across the room, accompanied by a booming voice announcing I passed the test and Mom would live. But no miraculous light shined; only the glow of the monitors and the soft sunlight peeking from the edges of the window shades.
 
“It … It’s okay to go,” I repeated. The aching mass in my throat threatened to choke my last words to her. “I love you, Mom.”
 
Mom’s grip lessened. The blank stare returned.
 
I stood in the unquiet room a few moments longer. Thoughts screamed in my head. ‘Run! Go! Leave!’ The machines seemed to get louder and Mom’s lungs cried out, begging to trade fluid for a wisp of air. Suddenly a dreadful moaning noise filled the room. I glanced around to see where it was coming from, and finally realized it was me. I released Mom’s hand, and stared at her unblinking eyes.
 
My weeping blurred my vision, and sanity. I walked backward to the door, barely able to see, and blindly left her.
 
“Daddy, please take me home. I want to go.”
 
Daddy nodded and briefly left to check on Mom. It felt like a lifetime. People stared when they walked by me. I was a mess; sobbing and shaking—staring at them with condemning eyes. I’m not sure why they angered me. I suppose because their mother wasn’t dying in the room across the hall.
 
Neither Daddy nor I said a word during the drive home. My crying and shaking ceased. I even stopped thinking. I felt hollow and numb. When we got to the house, I ambled downstairs and collapsed onto the couch.
 
Strange thoughts raced through my mind again. ‘I’ll be nineteen in a few hours. Mom said she would make me chicken croquets for my birthday. Will she be alive? Is this her last summer? Why did I tell her I didn’t like those red, white and blue earth shoes she bought me in sixth grade? Why didn’t I at least pretend to like her homemade soup?’
 
I turned on the clock-radio to drown out the voices of scrutiny, and watched the numbers of time flip over as Ronnie Milsap sang. “Any day now, when the clock strikes ‘Go, you’ll call it off and then my tears will flow…”
 
The number tabs on the clock flipped to 6:00 pm. The phone rang. I sat up. My mind reeled. I held my breath, trying to hear what Daddy said to the caller.
 
“Yes. Okay. Yes. Thank you.” His voice was almost a whisper. He hung up.
 
The third stair creaked. He was coming downstairs. I knew. The clock struck ‘Go.
 
I leapt and ran to meet Daddy in the foyer. He looked so sad. His eyebrows were wrinkled together and his blue eyes suddenly looked old.
“Mom’s gone,” he whispered, wiping away tears.
 
I felt like a mad-woman—like I could lose my mind if I didn’t run from those awful words. I collapsed into Daddy’s chest instead and we wept together.
 
The evil monster delivered its promise in the summer of ‘82. At the funeral, its treacherous voice haunted me. ‘I have a birthday gift for you. The last rose of summer, is set free.’
 
 
Tis the Last Rose of Summer

So soon may I follow,
When friendships decay,
And from Love’s shining circle
The gems drop away.
When true hearts lie wither’d,
And fond ones are flown,
Oh! who would inhabit
This bleak world alone?
 
 
Article by C.E. Hart. C.E. Hart, a closet writer for several decades, is now knocking on doors, pushing send buttons, and flying paper airplanes into publishers open windows. She writes poetry, memoirs, and short stories, and is currently working on three novels. Her southern upbringing often gives her work a nostalgic flavor; but that’s not to say she doesn’t have a fun quirky side as well. Visit C.E. Hart (aka Nic) on her new author blog http://cehart.blogspot.com and on her quad-authored writing blog http://www.wenchwriters.blogspot.com.
 

Related posts:

1. Hannah And Her Heart – A Children’s Story
2. Book Excerpt: Pitch Uncertain By Maisie Houghton
3. Haunting
4. Horror Fiction – Ten Cliches to Avoid
5. The Dynamic Duo: Words And Your Imagination
6. Love: Falling in Love With Your Spouse – Again

One of the most confusing issues in all of publishing involves ISBN codes.  How does a writer get an ISBN for a book?  How much does one cost?  What does the number mean?  Does a book require a new ISBN if it’s reprinted?  Are the numbers different in countries outside the States?  The list goes on, but unfortunately seldom if ever are the most important questions asked.  The purpose of this article is to explain how the ISBN works.  I’ll also be providing several links along the way for verification and clarification purposes, but I think it’s important to explain the basics of the ISBN first. 
 
 
The ISBN is One of Many Codes
 
ISBN stands for International Standard Book Number.  The definition of the ISBN is provided by isbn.org, but a simple explanation is:  The ISBN code is a unique identifier for books that are intended to be sold commercially.  The system was created in the U.K. in 1966 by W. H. Smith and called SBN or Standard Book Numbering.  It was adopted in 1970 as the international standard ISO 2108.  Another number, the ISSN, or International Standard Serial Number, is used for periodicals such as magazines. 
 
 
Be Aware that Different Codes are in Use in Countries Outside the U.S.
 
The first issue to keep in mind is that many countries use their own ISBN system.  For example, Canada uses the CISN format, which means Canadian ISBN Service System.  Also, Amazon uses its own identifier, which the firm calls ASIN (however, the number follows the ISBN code).  The second issue to be aware of is that the ISBN has no relationship whatsoever to the Library of Congress Control Number (which is free, by the way).  I think anyone serious about becoming published in any medium would be prudent to click the Library of Congress link and spend the 15 or so minutes it will take to read through the FAQ’s.
 
 
Instances in Which a Writer Doesn’t Need an ISBN
   
It’s important to understand that if a writer has no intention of selling his or her book via a commercial setting, handing it off to a wholesaler, or is not planning on placing the book in a public library, there is no need to apply for an ISBN.  But, if the author plans to sell the book through an outlet(s) of some sort, to answer the first question I posed, the ISBN may be purchased from only one official source provided by the U.S. government, and this is publisher R. R. Bowker, 630 Central Ave., New Providence, NJ  07974-1154.  The company’s toll free phone number is 877-310-7333.  
 
 
Yes, R. R. Bowker is the Only Official Government Purveyor for ISBN’s in the States
 
Now that I’ve clearly established Bowker as the originator of ISBN’s, what about the inordinate number of firms and individuals who resell the numbers?  Here is where it really gets sticky, but let me begin with cost first.  The cost of a single ISBN from Bowker is currently $125, while ten ISBN’s are sold to the public for $250 or $25 each.  The first question is, why would anyone need more than one number?  And the answer is, the person wouldn’t–unless the writer plans on having a book published in multiple mediums. 
 
If the latter is the case, each format, such as an e-book, hardback, softcover, trade paperback (which is smaller than softcover), etc., requires a different ISBN to identify the particular medium for the book.  Simply, one number applies to the hardback and another to the softcover, etc.  But as long as nothing changes in a book in the original medium in which it is published, it can be reprinted ad infinitum under the same ISBN.  But change any wording in the narrative, or the medium in which the book was originally published, and a new ISBN is required.  Not rocket science, but we’re not even close to through with this.
 
 
A Barcode is Necessary for All Books Sold Commercially or Placed in a Library
 
The next issue is the need for a unique barcode number, and this must also be purchased from Bowker (I know, how convenient).  A unique barcode number is necessary so the bookseller can identify the price point at which you want to sell your book.  So the first rule is not to purchase a barcode until you determine what price you want your book to sell for.  And since you might have an e-book priced at one price point and a softcover release at another, you would need a separate barcode for each; hence, again, the need for more than one identifier. 
 
Barcodes don’t have the dramatic price drops that are commensurate with ISBN codes (more on this to come).  A barcode is $25 each from 1 to 5, $23 if purchased in lots of 6 to 10, and $21 in any spread from 11 to 100.  Again, since they involve price points, you will have to tell Bowker your retail pricing for each style book so everything can be keyed-in accordingly.  While we’re still a long way from quantum physics, what comes next is a black hole that can reshape a writer’s universe–all the wrong way.
 
 
The Following Section May Be the Most Important Information a Writer Seeking Publication Will Ever Read
 
A great many publishers and individuals resell the ISBN’s, and it’s certainly appears advantageous for a writer to buy a single number for say $40 in lieu of $125.  The problem is, who owns the legal right to the title the ISBN identifies if the author has not received a release from the company or person who sold the number?  According to the staff at Bowker, and I pressed them on this issue several times to make certain of the consistency of what they were telling me, each year they are contacted by a multitude of writers who are justifiably distraught after they learn the rights to their book are really owned by the person or company that resold the ISBN to them!
 
I would think this is also a double-edged sword for the company or individual who is retaining the rights, especially if either is the publisher, since if the work is plagiarized, the publisher is always sued right along with the writer.  So, unless the staff at Bowker is lying to me to protect their interests, I think it would behoove any writer to make certain a release is signed before getting an ISBN from anyone outside of Bowker.  By the way, 100 ISBN’s are only $575 (according to what Mrs. Milsey taught me in the 4th grade, that’s $5.75 each), and 1000 are just $1000!  It’s easy to see why buying in bulk and reselling the numbers at a 20 to 40 times markup has substantial street appeal.
 
 
The ISBN and Barcode Can Be Combined on One Format
 
To recap, if you’re going to sell your book outside your individual efforts, you will have to acquire an ISBN and a barcode number that can be affixed to each book (unless your publisher of course prints them somewhere on the book).  And, again, as with changes or different formats that will require a separate ISBN, you will need a unique barcode for any price points that aren’t the same. 
 
If you should be interested in how the barcode is determined, since it also has a book’s category and other information embedded, Barcode Graphics Web site explains the process in detail and this is why I chose to highlight the firm in this section.  Included in their definitions is the tidbit that the Bookland EAN symbol is the barcode of choice in the book industry throughout the world because it allows for the encodation of ISBN’s with the barcode on a single label. 
 
This company’s price for 1000 of a single label with a both codes in a standard configuration is $27.75.  So once a writer has the ISBN number, and a price point, a single label can be ordered.  Just be aware that there are a gargantuan number of graphics outfits that can print labels, so it would behoove a writer to shop around, but I imagine $27.75 for 1000 labels is a pretty strong baseline.
 
 
 
The Release Should Be Issue Number One 
 
Regardless of from whom anyone acquires an ISBN outside of Bowker, the single most important issue is that the writer have a release signed by someone who has the authority to do so (which is another issue, and a monster in its own right).  My opinion, if anyone wants it, is that it’s probably better to go ahead with Bowker, buy ten ISBNs, get the exact number of barcodes that are needed initially, and be done with it (other than getting the labels printed in some manner if your work is not exclusively an e-book).  And if someone accepts my quantity suggestions for each component, the total for everything for one e-book and one printed book that can be sold by a wholesaler, retailer, or placed in a library, looks like a price tag of around $325, give or take $10.
 
By the way, it would be easy to load up on Bowker because of the company’s obvious monopoly status, but in fairness, would it be conceivable to have a hundred different authorized outlets dispensing numbers?  This seems like perhaps the only instance I can think of in which our government could’ve handled something internally–such as via a Library of Congress affiliate agency of some sort, especially since this is already being done with periodicals–and made money rather than turning it over to a private concern.  But, as many have said before me and many more will say after, who knows?
 

Robert L. Bacon, Founder
The Perfect Write

New Free Service for Serious Writers! The Perfect Write® is now providing a Free Manuscript Opening-Chapter Critique and Line Edit. Paste the first chapter of your manuscript (up to 5000 words) to theperfectwrite@aol.com (no attachments). In addition to the critique, The Perfect Write® will line edit, if applicable, up to the first three-pages of your double-spaced material also at no charge.

Related posts:

1. How to Price Your Book So That it Sells
2. Unconventional Writing Techniques – A Good or Bad Idea?
3. How to Price Your Copywriting Services
4. I Write the Perfect Novel – Why Can’t I Get it Published?
5. The Inner Critic Doesn’t Belong in the Creative Process

My wife is a professional book hoarder. She reads between 3-5 full-length paperback novels a month. Tally that up for a year, and you have a spare bedroom and hallway littered with her books. One pile here…two piles there… one pile for the cat to sleep on. “When are you going to get rid of these books,” I always ask her. She usually shrugs her shoulders at me, saying the same thing I’ve heard many times: “Soon, honey, soon.” She never rids the house of her old books; she collects them and hoards them and moves them around to fool me. Those books are priceless, precious memories to her. To me, they are stains on the carpet.
 
When I heard other book hoarders (who are ravenous readers like my wife) were falling in love with Amazon’s Kindle, I had a brilliant idea: if I bought my wife a Kindle for her birthday, it would solve my problem and her problem. I would have a clean house, free of Danielle Steele, Anne Rice, Stephen King, and Nicholas Sparks; and my wife could have all of the books she ever wanted to read right in her lap.
 
So for her birthday, I bought my wife a Kindle. Her eyes lit up and her lips pouted in awe when she saw I had gotten her a Kindle. The Kindle device shined and gleaned in the living room light as she removed the Kindle from the box. She held the delicate device up to her heart in both hands, and cradled it like a baby and cooed at it. (Yes, she really did coo.) “Thanks so much, honey. I love it! I always wanted one!”
 
Then the irritating questions began. “How do you turn it on?,” Where’s the switch?,” “I pressed the button…why isn’t anything happening?” Yeah, my wife is technically-challenged. She still thinks the US Postal Service sends all of her e-mails. I looked at her, shaking my head, and sighed. “Why don’t you try plugging it in?” I pointed to the thing-a-ma-gig — a plug. “You probably have to charge it up,” I told her.
 

“Well, okay,” she said sharply. “You don’t have to get short-tempered with me.” I thought to myself: Oh, great, our first fight over a Kindle.
 
She plugged in her Kindle and waited. Nothing happened. She started poking the screen with her fingers, like shes does with her iPod Touch. Nothing happened. She then started pressing the buttons on the side, the keyboard buttons on front, and lastly, the menu key. “Honey, nothing is happening… I think it’s broken… If it’s broken, you’re going to have to return it… How could they ship it broken? Was the box damaged?” She paused a second and glared at me. “Can you come over and help me, please!”
 
I was semi-occupied playing with my iPad, reading my e-mails, and swiping the screen to browse the Internet while she was trying to figure out her Kindle. I thought to myself: “Why can’t everything be as simple as my iPad? You press a button and swipe. That’s it. You swipe.”
 
I set aside my iPad and stepped over to the couch. I grabbed the Kindle. The Kindle screen stared blankly at me. I looked for a power button somewhere below the screen, like my iPad has, a power-on button so blatantly exposed. Nothing but arrow keys and little tiny letters that make a low-tech keyboard. I found buttons on the side of the Kindle, and fiddled with them. No power. My fingers brushed against a switch at the bottom of the Kindle, which looked exactly like a power-on switch from a 1980′s plug-in calculator. I slid the switch forward. Kindle’s screen glowed to life in all its brilliance. My wife and I smiled gratefully at the screen, amazed at the typeface, so crisp and clear.
 
My wife and I were both eager to download an e-book and put the Kindle through its paces. The screen instructed us what to do. I pressed my finger on the area of the screen to navigate to the setting’s page. Nothing happened. I pressed my finger on the screen again and again. Nothing happened. Frustrated, I began swiping and zig-zagging my fingers across the screen to get somewhere. The Kindle screen did not budge; instead it stared back at me, as if mocking me.
 
“Okay, stop,” said my wife, looking annoyed. “You’re going to kill my Kindle doing that.”
 
“What the hell?” I said, dumbfounded. “How do you navigate this thing?”
 
“Here, let me see,” my wife said with a sigh. She grabbed her Kindle and the instructions manual and quickly briefed herself on how to navigate the Kindle. I refused to read the instructions because I have a big ego when is comes to technology. I build websites for a living. I use the latest tablet and mobile devices. I know how technology works. So what gives?
 
My wife figured out the problem in no time. “You have to use these buttons on the side to move up and down,” she said. “And use these other keys and characters to set it up.”
 
“Well, that sucks,” I said, pondering to myself why Kindles do not have a touch screen to navigate and input settings, like my iPad, which is so easy to use.
 
In any case, my wife and I downloaded her first e-book to her Kindle. The reading experience on the Kindle was awesome. Letters, words, and paragraphs flowed so beautifully and smoothly together, so crisp and clear on her Kindle, I was in awe. But…I still couldn’t figure out why Amazon’s engineers and designers decided to use ugly, antiquated push-buttons for input and navigation, instead of using an easy-to-use touch screen.
 
One day, when I was cleaning the finger and thumbprints off of my iPad’s screen for the millionth time, I realized why Amazon decided to forfeit a touch-screen in favor of buttons. When Amazon designed the Kindle, they did so with their core users in mind: book readers and book lovers. The company did not want Kindle users mucking up their crisp and clear Kindle screens with their dirty fingerprints. That would make for an awful reading experience. Additionally, the side buttons to navigate the pages allow Kindle users to hold their Kindles in one hand and turn a page as they read, as most hard-core readers do with a regular paperback book.
 
This story has a happy ending. My wife is still ecstatic with her Kindle. I am happy that we have less paperback books cluttering the house. Occasionally, I pick up my wife’s Kindle to see what she is reading and I find myself habitually swiping the screen with my fingers to turn a page. It takes a few seconds for me to catch my error. Sometimes my wife laughs at me. Sometimes I laugh at myself too. I am not as high-tech as I thought.
 
 
Brian Scott is a professional freelance writer with over a decade of experience. Learn about self-publishing ebooks at http://www.ebookselfpublishinghelp.com
 

Related posts:

1. Connecting with Teens in a Small Screen World
2. Has the Internet killed the art of conversation?
3. Book Review: Ain’t No Sunshine by Leslie DuBois (Kindle Edition)
4. Author Interview: David Bowman, Author of 300 Days of Better Writing
5. How to Write a Book Summary that Sells

I know that most people have heard this phrase: “SEO or search engine optimization is now the best of all internet marketing tools”. Because search engines like Google are becoming the biggest marketing mediums, marketers had to move from traditional marketing to internet marketing. While there is no better traffic than the organic traffic, SEO has become an obsession for most internet marketers seeking targeted traffic and high conversion rates.
 
One of the best books which discusses SEO is The Art of SEO. This book is authored by top four SEO experts: Eric Enge, Stephan Spencer, Rand Fishkin and Jessie C. Stricchiola. It is for advanced as well as novice readers; it covers almost all SEO aspects from keyword research to obtaining a high ranking.
 
The authors of this book start showing you how search engines work so you can understand what they like and what they don’t. The other great thing about this book is that it covers how you can identify long tail keywords so you can use them and obtain a high ranking very easily. Also it covers seasonal trends so you can optimize you site to sell more stuff on those holidays. While most SEO books concentrate solely on Google, this book covers other search engines such as Bing.com.
 
Chapter 3 of this book explains how you can determine your SEO objectives and define your site’s audience before you do anything else. Starting with a good SEO plan in mind will make your efforts more effective and you’ll end up with the right results you have wished for. As SEO differs from one audience to other, you need to identify your audience type, whether you want straight sales, branding or ideological influence.
 
The best thing about The Art of SEO is that it goes through every known SEO process gradually. It begins with keyword research, where you use various marketing tools to identify potential high traffic keywords which have the least competition possible. After that it concentrates on developing high quality content that is worth linking to. It covers the latest link building techniques which you can use to take your Web Pages to the highest point possible on the SERPs (hopefully the 1st spot) and finally how you can measure your success by tracking results.
 
This book includes additional chapters that discuss many subjects that no other SEO book I’ve read has discussed before like: domain changes, troubleshooting, outsourcing, building an SEO team and a future look at SEO. Whether you are an SEO beginner or expert, you’ll find hundreds of things you didn’t know about SEO. If you intend to start an online business or plan taking an existing one to the next level, then I can’t see a book better for you than this one.
 
Book review by Edgar Boutaric.

The Art of SEO by Eric Enge, Stephan Spencer, Rand Fishkin and Jessie C Stricchiola (O’Reilly Media, Print ISBN: 978-0-596-51886-8, Ebook ISBN: 978-0-596-80960-7, 608 pp) is available everywhere. To find out more and purchase the book, please visit their website at http://www.artofseobook.com/ or O’Reilly Media.

Related posts:

1. The writing secrets of Ayn Rand
2. Book Review: The Compass by Tammy Kling and John Spencer Ellis
3. ‘Choosing’ to be a writer
4. Connecting with Bloggers to Promote Your Book
5. How to Get a Celebrity Endorsement For Your Book – Tips to Get a Quote on Your Book Cover
6. Why Isn’t Your Book Profitable? 10 Reasons

Related posts:

1. Finding Age Appropriate Words When Writing For Children
2. Should You Tell Literary Agents & Editors About Your Self-Published Book?
3. How to Write a Book That Children Will Love – And Children’s Book Publishers Will Love Too
4. Express Yourself Through Creative Writing
5. Break Into Print – 7 Habits Of Highly Published Authors
6. Creative Techniques That Make Business Writing Stand Out

I was a poet. I ate, read, wrote, and slept poetry. It was all I cared about. It was my entire identity. I based my self worth on my meter and syntax. Talk about putting all your eggs in one basket. I had remarkably fragile eggs and a really tiny basket. I was obsessive.
 
And I managed this delicate balance, this precarious existence, for years. I had another job (that I chose specifically to complement the poet-lifestyle) that paid the bills, and I spent all my free time pursuing the poetry. I made just enough money at it to pay for (most of) my postage stamps and reading fees.
 
It wasn’t that I wasn’t interested in other genres. I read them. I just didn’t believe that I was capable of creating them. I had gone to Stonecoast for my MFA, and those fiction and nonfiction writers just seemed so untouchable. And they told me that poets were strange artist types who liked starving. There was a definitive divide between genres and very, very few crossed it.
 
But after years and years of poetry, I started to grow tired. Though my work was probably accepted for publication about 25% of the time, the other 75% started to nag at me. My muse left me. She just up and moved out. I didn’t feel like writing poetry anymore. I wondered if I was depressed. I wondered if I was losing my mind. I had been writing poems every day since I was about five. And suddenly, I just didn’t want to anymore. I stopped writing, stopped submitting, and even turned down offers to read at some of my regular venues. I was just tired.
 
And then, I heard a submission call from a nationally recognized magazine. They wanted poems and essays. And for reasons that I cannot even identify, I decided to write an essay. And I submitted it. And it was accepted immediately. I took this as a sign. Maybe I was an essay writer?
 
And so I began to write essays and felt some of the old thrill I used to feel when creating poetry. I began to feel alive again and I returned to the keyboard. The dam broke, and essays gushed out of me.
 
And then, something weird happened. The poems came back. They came back gently. There was no pressure, no aching need – they just eased their way back into my life, back through my fingertips.
 
And then I had a crazy idea. I wrote a short story. It was published and I got more feedback from that one story than I ever got from any dozen poems.
 
Suddenly, I was a cross-genre writer. I became so excited about writing that I couldn’t seem to do anything else. I began to churn out the work again, but I wasn’t obsessive anymore. I was really quite relaxed. It just sort of happened.
 
Students will sometimes ask me for advice. I used to give them some cryptic zen maxim that couldn’t have possibly been of any use to them. Now I just say, “Don’t limit yourself. Experiment. You don’t know who you are as a writer if you don’t test your limits.”
 
So while there is a lot to be said for focusing on what you are good at, I’m so much happier now that I don’t. I sit before you now, still a poet, but more importantly, a Jane of all trades, master of absolutely none.
 

Article by Robin Merrill. Robin is a poet who happily spends a lot of her time writing prose about Criminal Justice Jobs and Criminal Justice Colleges and Universities. She splits her time between Maine and Michigan. Robin has an MFA from Stonecoast and she is the proud mother of two terrific toddlers and two behaviorally challenged hounds, Maybelle and Orville. Visit Robin at http://robinmerrill.com
 

Related posts:

1. Six Things Your Mother Doesn’t Know About Writing Poetry
2. 5 Habits Every Serious Poet Should Develop
3. Six Techniques to Make Editors Notice Your Poetry
4. How to Write . . . Anything
5. Hope is Wearing Mittens Signing its Message to the Blind
6. The Mind of a Young Writer

Have you ever considered how the plots were constructed in your favorite novels? Do you look for formulas or plot structure in the novels you read? If you’re a writer, do you diagram your plots so you know when to focus on the main plot (MP), character development (CD), or your subplots (SP1, SP2)?

I think most authors say they don’t use a formula or plan their plots out in too much detail. They say things like “It’s too restrictive, limits creativity, even takes the fun out of writing. If it becomes overly structured it’s too much like writing a term paper or a book report instead of a novel.”

Well, this may or may not be true. That probably depends on the writer’s personality, experience, talent, and so forth. One thing is for sure – the authors who churn out one novel after another have a structure they follow. It may be subconscious, but it’s there nonetheless. You can prove this by diagramming a couple of their novels. They follow a pattern that moves from main plot to subplots, back and forth, in such a way that you don’t get lost or forget what’s going on. As I said, the really experienced writers just kind of know to do this and don’t need to keep the structure in mind. But the beginner or novice generally needs help keeping everything running smoothly. The good news is that it’s really easy to do and can even help you avoid getting blocked. Let’s look at some numbers to illustrate the point.

By industry standards, a novel is 50,000 words or more. The word count varies tremendously but most popular fiction runs about 250 pages in print. That computes to roughly a 300 page manuscript. With an average word count of 250 per page in manuscript format this computes to 75,000 words. Obviously, these are rough estimates since these numbers can greatly vary depending on the amount of dialogue, descriptive content, paragraph length, etc. But these are good averages to work with. Plus, the math is easy.

Within all those words the writer has to develop his characters, throw them into some kind of situation or plot, and add some additional material which will be one or more subplots. A good rule of thumb for allocation is 65-25-10. 65% devoted to the main plot (MP). 25% devoted to subplot one (SP1). 10% devoted to subplot two (SP2). If we continue with our math this breaks down to 48,750 words (195 pages) devoted to MP; 18,750 words (75 pages) for SP1; and 7,500 words (30 pages) for SP2. Character development occurs throughout and is generally not included as a separate word/page count.

The key is to concentrate on MP while weaving SP1 and SP2 into the storyline without getting too sidetracked. You don’t want to be away from any of your plots so long that the reader forgets what’s going on. In creating the structure you can actually map it out, chapter by chapter. You want to loop back to your SPs every four or five chapters, depending on how long your chapters are. This not only gives you some direction on what you need to be working on next, it also helps you keep the action connected.

One more point about structure. You can work on each plot separately if that works for you. Then you simply go back and weave them all together. This is a great option if you find yourself with writer’s block. If you’re bogged down with MP, write for a few days on SP1 or SP2. This also helps you come up with twists and turns and foreshadowing and hooks that will keep your reader turning pages.

The next time you read a novel, or watch a movie for that matter, look for the MP and SPs. The MP will be the major conflict that drives the story. One SP will deal with a relationship, usually romantic, in which the main character is involved. The other SP will be a device for character development, typically it involves a little humor and levity, and may not be directly tied into the MP. It will be very evident if you look for it.

Merrill Heath is an author who has a strong desire to “pay it forward” by helping other authors improve their craft. For more information on his novels and current projects visit his blog at: http://merrillheath.wordpress.com

Once you finish writing your story, consider eBook publishing services to distribute your work worldwide.

Related posts:

1. Revive a Stalled Novel – Weave Sub-Plots Into Your Fiction Novel
2. How to Improve Your Writing – Nobody’s That Perfect
3. Perfect Plot Structure
4. Writing Tips – Adding Depth To Your Narrative
5. Word Count: Does Size Really Matter?
6. The Long and Short of The Short Story

Freelance writing may be one of the world’s most demanding occupations, no matter whether full-time or part-time. Creativity is the stock in trade of a freelance writer, and today, when clients are eager to see a higher and higher quality, it can be very challenging to keep up the pace.

You have to sacrifice something, especially if you are working full time as a freelance writer. This is even truer for the freelance writer who is working in an office.

Why is that? It’s simple:unlike someone working at home, you don’t have access to some of the same luxuries.

You probably already know that our fragile psychological balance is closely correlated with our physical health. There is no need to recite the scientific proof of this, since it is so well known. This is why most of the issues addressed in this article will be related somehow to our physical well-being.

There is a plenitude of sites/resources on the Internet offering solutions for a healthier life. In most cases, however, you need only to stick to the basics to stay healthy physically and, thus, psychologically. Given this, are there are any special concerns for freelance writers?

As a matter of fact, there are. However, freelance writing drudgery is not substantively different from any managerial work in any big company. Why? The office is the common, shared culprit. It can be a major obstacle to psychologically stable work.

I personally think that offices can “suck out your personal energy”, if you will allow me such a definition. There are a number of reasons for asserting this.

One of the most important reasons is the type and number of appliances that you might have in the office – copy machines, air conditioning, and computers.

Why are they bad? In brief, they don’t just sit there humming and clicking – they emit all sorts of things.

Some of them create additional amounts of ozone. Ozone, or O3, which makes the outdoors smell wonderful after a lightning storms. However, ozone crowds out the kind of oxygen (O 3) we need to breathe if it is emitted into the air in enclosed spaces (your offices) over long periods of time. Other gases produced include nitrous oxide (N2O) carbon monoxide (CO), neither one beneficial.

Other machines emit small amounts of electromagnetic radiation. Again, in close quarters, over months and years, the long term consequences can be really dangerous.

This does not even address the chemical vapors and particulates that waft through the office atmosphere. You can be exposed to volatiles from toner, the wallboard, the carpeting glue, the paint, and micro-particulates from ink, or your neighbor’s smoking residues.

How are these bad for your psychological balance? All of these emissions can cause different sorts of illnesses, from a simple headache to something more serious – we will not specify, to keep matters a bit more positive. When you have constant headaches and lack of oxygen, you will feel poorly, of course. And that has a good chance to cause mental effects over the long run, in a long-term period.

Depression is one of the most devastating potential effects, and can seriously block your creativity, which is your greatest asset. How can you offset these problems? Well, if you can do so, try opening up the windows in your office. Even if your offices have good industrial air conditioning, it is nonetheless better to go out and take a walk during your breaks. Breathe deeply (assuming that you are not in the midst of massive traffic exhaust), and stretch your muscles as you walk.

Another important issue is dehydration. While working on a computer, you need to be able to drink regularly and adequately in order to maintain your body’s fluid balance.

As you can see, there are a variety of factors affecting your work, but, apart from those generated by your physical surroundings and internal conditions, there are also issues that are purely psychological. Creative blocks are among the most potentially handicapping. How can you fight creative block? There are ways you can combat it, be assured of that; it need not be permanent or crippling.

However, you need to know what is causing it. First of all, you must eliminate the possibility that your creative paralysis is due to clinical depression, whether from something distressing in your life, whether short term or long term. If there is a chance that you are suffering from clinical depression, you need professional help.

There are many other reasons for creative block; mundane, repetitive work, routine scenarios, boring duties, and similar issues. There are actually many approaches you can take to offset these situations.

Have you ever thought about changing things around on your desk? Do you work in a cubicle or have a separate desk in the office? Try brightening them up with your favorite posters. You could also add some pictures of your friends and family. Have you heard of this new fad – putting enlarged pictures of all of your Facebook friends on the walls of your office? You should probably ask your boss if it’s OK to do that. This will definitely enliven your environment, and may actually kick-start your creativity.

Who knows, perhaps looking at them will remind you if an intriguing anecdote about a friend, perhaps one that could be useful in a paper with which you are struggling. Like chicken soup and mother love, it couldn’t hurt.

Another important source of either stimulation or boredom is your location. You may take the same route to work daily, and sit in the same office. This can be quite deadening to many people, and can drag their creativity down.

There are some simple ways to counteract this problem: you can change your route to work, even if it means leaving a bit earlier to take a small detour. If you drive or have access to a portable radio, you can listen to an entirely unfamiliar station.

You can also have a mini-vacation for a weekend. If you can manage the cost, you can go with your family to a hotel in a nearby community, and be ‘tourists’ there for a day. An alternative is to find a hostel, which would be considerably less expensive. In some areas, religious communities open their doors to guests, usually at modest cost.

Campgrounds offer another low-cost way to be elsewhere and take a new perspective on life. Serving at a homeless shelter or similar charity can offer a new paradigm for living without ever leaving your home town. All of these things can energize you and break the paralysis that too much routine can cause.

These are just some basic tips and principles that most of the office writers with our company, ResearchWritingCenter.com, use. They are tested personally by our staff and so you can consider them to be effective. If you have your own techniques for fighting the negative psychological effects of working in an office – feel free to share those in the comments section for this article!
 
Article by Alex Toll, Editor at ResearchWritingCenter.com. Favorite Quote: “Knowledge is of no value, unless you put it into practice” – Anton Chekhov
 
 

Related posts:

1. Ten Psychological Tips that Will Change How You Look and Feel About Beauty
2. Writer’s Block Is Only As Bad As You Let It Be
3. Freelance Writers -Why the Current Credit Crisis is a Good Thing For Your Career
4. Spring Cleaning: How to get Fit in All Areas in the Next 60 Days
5. Accidental Magic
6. How to Drop Your Creative Resistance

Journalists don’t just write. For feature writers, composing an article is just the car drive home from the airport after a complicated trip overseas. Before you can roll out a brilliant story, you must put more effort into gathering information than you ever thought necessary. That doesn’t just apply to journalistic feature writing, however. The journalistic techniques of gathering and organizing information can help any kind of writer.

PRECISE RESEARCH

When researching your topic, go straight to the source. The President of the company or the main character’s great-niece’s friend’s famous cousin may look fancy or make your piece seem more official, but they are usually not the ones most directly involved in the situation. You want accuracy and depth, not fancy titles. Find the guy who was out walking his dog when the escaped monkey ran past him, don’t just talk with the zoo owner.

Interview Lists

If you plan to write a feature story about a man who runs a doughnut shop, you might want to make an interview list that looks something like this:

· His family

· His employees

· His favorite customers

· Neighboring shop owners

· The postman who brings the mail into his store every day

· His colleagues in the chamber of commerce small business association

Once you start gathering information from these people, you can build out your interview list based on what they tell you and different angles you decide to pursue.

Rabbit Trails

Have you ever been searching for something on the Internet and saw something interesting on the side that you wanted to click? And once you clicked it, you saw something else interesting to click? Before you know it, you’re on a massive rabbit trail of related topics, and you don’t even know how to get back to your original page. That habit usually gets in the way of normal productivity, but use it to your advantage when researching information for your topic. I often find new angles and additional information this way, so click around and explore.

THOROUGH INTERVIEWS

Some people hate interviews so much that they ask the necessary questions and get out of there as soon as possible. This is rarely successful. Asking just the “necessary” questions can only result in a mediocre, lifeless article. It can be awkward to phone a complete stranger, ask to meet up and proceed to ask extremely personal questions, but if you really want good information, you can’t settle for the canned answers to a few questions. You have to draw out the human-interest side by getting beyond your question list.

Questions

My most successful interview strategy was to bring just a few questions with me to make sure I didn’t forget to clarify a few holes in the story I was working on. Beyond that, I just let the person talk, asking leading questions based on whatever they were telling me. That’s how you get relevant information. The person involved in the story knows more about the topic than you do as a writer, so what is significant to them should become significant to you.

An important thing to remember is to be patient. It never fails – I’m finished asking questions, I’m getting up to leave and the interviewee says the most poignant, relevant, helpful, clarifying comment of the entire conversation. Be listening for that. Don’t shut off the “interviewing mode” until you have officially packed up and left or you will miss those glittering gems. People sometimes clam up while they’re being interviewed, so when it looks like you are finished, the pressure goes away.

Scope

This technique can apply to literary writing as well, because you have to get information from people before you can write an excellent piece. If you rely solely on your own personal knowledge and some Internet or book research, your piece will lack depth and come across as one-dimensional. Never settle for simply gathering the necessary information. Find all the information you can possibly come across. Once you understand the broader scope, you can more accurately narrow the focus from there.

BUILD A BETTER STORY

Whether you’re working on a novel or you’re trying to improve your investigative political blog, every writer should know how to effectively gather information. Once you have more information than you think you need, you are far less likely to get trapped in a rut or hit writer’s block. With such a wide pool of information from which to draw, it will be much easier to form your story and write something colorful where readers can almost experience the drama themselves.
 
Article by Hannah Daniel. Hannah writes for a dental blog backed by 1Dental.com, which offers affordable dental plans nationwide. She enjoys keeping people up to date on dental news and helping them save money on dental care. She uses her background in journalism to influence her writing style.
 
 

Related posts:

1. Where to Start Writing Your Book
2. Interviewing For Beginners
3. How to Develop Your Book’s Structure
4. The Dynamic Duo: Words And Your Imagination
5. What Makes a Book a Best-Seller?
6. Ebook-Newsletter Writers – How to Get an Expert to Agree to an Interview

Have you been told your POV transitions are rough? That your POV head hops? That your characters lack depth? If so, perhaps this article may help you.

Consider the method-acting process developed by Constantin Stanislavski of the Moscow Theatre and continued by Leo Strasberg in Hollywood. That method is one in which the actor wills himself to become the character he’s playing. Some actors/actresses meticulously research their roles prior to filming/stage. Rene Zeilwegger worked two weeks in a London office to train for her role in “Bridget Jones’ Diary.”

What’s the point of this information in an article on writing? Thank you, I’m so glad you asked. Because in writing, the author must mentally become the character in whose point of view the author is writing the scene. Whether writing from the POV of the hero, heroine, villain, or a secondary character, the author must become that character and experience the scene from that character’s body and mind. Record only those things the POV character could experience.

Elementary example when writing from Mary’s POV:
Instead of: Mary could see John wondered what she meant.
That phrase from Mary’s POV might better read: John stared. Didn’t he understand what she meant?
Mary cannot know what John is thinking, she can only guess from his facial expression and body language.

Life experience determines a character’s thoughts, dialogue, and actions. The same is true for an internal dialogue—the character’s impressions reflect these past experiences. How would your character react differently than another in the circumstances of your scene? For instance, in my out-of-print story, The Most Unsuitable Wife, the heroine Pearl bakes pastry and bread to sell to the townspeople. When she meets a brown-eyed man, she thinks his eyes are the color of cinnamon. On the other hand, a storekeeper might think brown eyes the color of the new boots that just arrived. In my June 2010 release, Out of The Blue, heroine Deirdre thinks Mildred’s hair is like a sunset. Deirdre is a naïve young woman who’s been transported from 1845 Ireland to 2010 Texas and doesn’t realize the other woman’s hair is a freakish sight. In the September 2010 release,The Texan’s Irish Bride, heroine Cenora O’Neill believes rancher Dallas McClintock is wealthy because she saw the cash in his money belt from horses he’s sold. Living the life of a vagabond Irish Traveler, she has no concept of the funds required to operate a large ranch. Keep your POV character’s life condition in mind as your write each scene.

Don’t forget to surround the character with the senses. What does the character see, feel, taste, hear, smell, sense, and perceive as reactions from the others in the scene? Immerse the reader in the character’s impressions. Remember, though, express only what you as the POV character experience. No bouncing around. Yes, I know Nora Roberts can hop from one character to another in the same scene or paragraph. If you have her fan base and wonderful creative skill, you may too. Otherwise, follow the rules! No more than one POV change—with a smooth transition—in any scene.

Recapping, each of us is the sum of his or her experiences. Those life experiences color how we interpret and react to incidents. Keep that in mind when creating your POV character’s internal and external dialogue. If you master Method-POV, you will eliminate head hopping. More importantly, because you are deeply in the character’s POV, you will draw the reader in as well. That’s what we want, isn’t it? Readers who can’t put down our books! And, as they say on the movie set, that’s a wrap.
 

Article by Caroline Clemmons. As long as she can remember, Caroline Clemmons has made us adventures. Her career includes stay-at-home mom, newspaper reporter and featured columnist, assistant to the managing editor of a psychology journal, and bookkeeper. She and her husband live on a small acreage in rural North Central Texas with their dog and two cats. When not writing, Caroline loves spending time with family, reading, family history, travel, and browsing antique malls and estate sales. To learn more about Caroline and her books, please visit Caroline’s blog at http://carolineclemmons.blogspot.com and her site at www.carolineclemmons.com.
 

Related posts:

1. Solving 3 Common Dialogue Problems
2. Tagging Dialogue – It’s a Matter of “He Said, She Said”
3. Writing Fiction in the Present Tense
4. How to Improve Your Writing – Nobody’s That Perfect
5. Writing – It’s All in the Conflict
6. Viewpoint – How To Bring Your Story To Life By Departing From The Norm

“How do you FIND the humor?” is the question I’m asked a lot because I think most people would like to add humor to their communications – written and verbal – but they just don’t know where to look. As a comedian and comedy writer for the past 17 years, I’ve developed a whole arsenal of places I focus on when coming up with jokes. And the cool thing is, it’s not that hard.
 
I specialize in comedy shows and humor keynotes for corporations and associations, and for many of the groups I speak to, I’ve never even heard of them (Alfalfa Seed Growers comes to mind). But that doesn’t stop me from writing jokes about them and their industry. Whether you’re speaking AT the event or writing ABOUT the event, there’s humor everywhere! Here’s 5 things I focus on to find the funny wherever I am:
 
Decorations. Now you don’t want to slam the client who spent hours and big bucks decorating the room, but sometimes you can have a little TASTEFUL fun. I did a show for a hospital in which the centerpieces on the tables were dried flowers. It’s a hospital for crying out loud! So I got ‘em laughing by pointing out “how good can the hospital be if they can’t even keep their plants alive?” Even the CEO loved it! So look at the decorations and ask “why did they choose them?” and “what do they remind you of?” Make mention of it, or describe it in a written piece, and you’ll come up with some funny stuff.
 
The Agenda. Just because you aren’t familiar with the group or subject, doesn’t mean you can’t joke about it. In fact you have an advantage because you can look at it with a fresh set of eyes. I like to scan the agenda so that I can goof around with the sessions and what they’re learning at the conference. At some of the more technical (read boring) conferences, I kick off with, “I notice you all are wearing name tags. I’m thinking ‘why’. . .it’s not like anyone from the outside is going to try to sneak into these sessions!” It gets a great laugh because they realize just how weird their subject is to the rest of us! Look at the brochure and see what doesn’t make sense to you. . and then bring out that paradox. In addition, I also look for contradictions between sessions, such as the group I spoke to who were sitting in “50 Ways to be Frugal” followed by “Identity Theft”. . . hey, I think I know how to save a buck.
 
Awards. Sometimes the awards, or the reason they’re giving them, is hilarious – you just need to point out the obvious. At a recent chamber of commerce event, they gave out the “most valuable citizen of the year” award to Sam. I’m thinking ‘How does that make the rest of the audience feel?,’ which led to a fun opening line. . . “Don’t get stuck in a burning building with Sam, because you know who the fire department will rescue first!” I address awards humor more in depth in a recent blog post on my site, but in summary, you can usually have fun with the WHY and the HOW of the awards. Make up some funny reasons why they’re getting it, the weird qualifications they needed to be considered for it, or how it’ll affect their life now that they have it.
 
Vendors and Sponsors. I always love having fun with the vendors and sponsors because they’ve spent tons of money supporting the event, yet many times they’re just given a quick “thanks” by an unenthusiastic emcee, and maybe a 2 second power point slide acknowledgement. So walk through the exhibit hall to check out who’s represented and read the ads in the conference brochure. Then ask what the products remind you of and why would you use them. At a nursing conference, I noticed that many of the exhibitors were drug companies whose booths listed how their drugs worked on all sorts of private body parts. I realized what it reminded me of, and then had some fun by pointing out that all 7 of George Carlin’s famous “7-words you can’t say on TV” routine were listed on their exhibit booths. As long as you’re not slamming the product or the company, you can joke on them… trust me, the exhibitors and sponsors appreciate it!
 
Statistics. Are there any fun statistics you know or can find out about the group? I just did a show for an insurance agency in the midwest, and I read that the most stolen car in Wisconsin is the Dodge Caravan. Really? What do you conjure up when you think of owners of this vehicle? Soccer moms! No wonder these women are always in a hurry – I thought it was because they were late for picking up their kids; turns out they’re being chased by the cops! I had all sorts of fun with that one statistic, so find out some true stats and then make up funny reasons around them. If 65% of people like red koolaid, then what do the other 35% like? Or why do they like it or how do they like it. Humor on statistics works 100% of the time!
 
Using humor in your communications will instantly connect you with your audience and keep them engaged with you so they want to listen/read and come back. And you don’t have to be a comedian to be funny, you just have to pay ATTENTION. . . .and then you’ll keep theirs.
 

Jan McInnis is a comedian, professional speaker and comedy writer. She’s been featured in the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post for her clean humor, and she’s the author of the book “Finding the Funny Fast: How to Create Quick Humor to Connect with Clients, Coworkers and Crowds“.  Jan can be reached at www.ComedyWriterBlog.com
 

Related posts:

1. Writing Romantic Comedy: How To Judge What Is and Isn’t Funny
2. Staying on The Funny Side of Weight Loss Secrets
3. Humor: not Everyone Can Hear the Funny
4. Staying on the Funny Side of Spontaneity
5. Cultivating Organic Humor
6. The Anatomy of a Big-Time Author Event

Think “Second Life,” and you would be forgiven for conjuring up images of socially challenged geeks sitting in a basement acting out bizarre fantasies in a virtual world for far too many hours a week. The mainstream media hasn’t always covered “SL” in the most friendly of lights – often opting for sensationalist stories about virtual infidelities over any real informative material.

But Second Life has a number of amazing communities and venues that might interest you – the writing community. And I will be writing regularly about the people, places, events and opportunities taking place within SL in the written word communities.

There are groups regularly meeting to share poetry or prose, there are writing workshops, spoken word slam style events, theatre productions and writing festivals taking place in Second Life on a regular basis and the platform can prove a really fantastic place to share your own writing, improve your own writing and network with other writers (ranging from those who have book deals to those who only started writing very recently).

Before I begin to introduce you to the places and people driving the Second Life written word community however, allow me to introduce myself and give you an overview of Second Life.

I’m Adam, or Josue Habana, as I am known in avatar form in Second Life.

I have my own SL blog, Pixel Scoop and I have been using Second Life for 3 years now. I’m a keen poet in real life – in fact I just love to write anything. I’m a passionate blogger and am looking forward to November’s NaNoWriMo as the next big challenge. In “real life” I am in my late twenties, am a proud Father and run my own Internet Marketing business. So that’s a bit about me… but what about this Second Life?

Well, it’s essentially a virtual world in which all of the content is created by its residents. There are real life educational institutions with virtual campuses in there, there are virtual night clubs, businesses, shops and all sorts of written word community venues too. My aim with my contributions to The Cuckleburr Times is to introduce this platform and to encourage those who want to network in a completely immersive environment with other writers to give it a go.

I will be back soon with a feature from within the virtual world. In the meantime and throughout, I am available to answer any questions from The Cuckleburr Times readers about the platform at all or to assist in registering and learning to navigate SL. You can leave a comment below and ask here, or contact me by email or Twitter.

Related posts:

1. Get Published – Three Secrets of the New York Publishing World
2. How to Use Social Media to Market Your Book
3. How To Write About A Real Location If You Haven’t Been There
4. Real Time Web for Old Time Books: The Benefit of Social Media for Publisher and Authors
5. How to Sell More Copies of Your Book – Simple Marketing Tip For Writers & Authors
6. Freelance Writers – How the Competition Can Increase Your Income

This is a guest post by Mike Carter of Artists Inlet Press.
 
Some stories carry a tightly wound plot which makes for interest. Others present a process. We watch events unfold with no grand design. The characters go about their business inextricably engaged in  it. How can such a story hold our interest? Details and allusion and metaphor. Going on a sturdy but thin branch, Steinbeck’s East of Eden reads as a process. Compare Eden to Gone with the Wind to realize the difference. Either way, the source of ideas is generated by his interest in people, in his locale, in the way things work, including the mind. The writer has never lost his curiosity.
 
The writer is stimulated by thoughts, by observation, and the emotions these lead to. An emotion cannot occur without a first thought. The idea that we should write objectively doesn’t refer to getting the details straight. That’s the common sense of that phrase. But, the practical, and uncommon, meaning of objectivity is writing just what we think. Objectivity involves that transition from detail to the formation of an image, a swirl of them coalescing into an idea much in the same way the interstellar fragments form planets around a star. We are the star, and the fragments are the constant flow of the world’s details into our senses. Through the gravity of our determination, patience, and fortitude we create whole ideas, bodies of the thought, create life. Then comes the arduous process of thought-to-word transfer. And that is another story, non-figuratively speaking.
 
What we call inspiration, the fuel of the creative process, begins with interest. With “how?” questions, “what if” questions. We can paraphrase Socrates’ statement, “The unexamined life is not worth living” with “The unexamined life is not worth writing.” It is no accident that often writers are seen as quirky. They look beyond what most are content to see. By choice and necessity their views embrace a broader perspective than most. They not only think outside the box but look outside it.
 
The downside of being this writing person involves the ups-and-downs of translating thoughts into just-so words and then into sentences. The joy comes from that interest in nearly everything, from how ants carry ten times their weight to the way the setting sun flattens onto the horizon. The way Mozart develops five themes simultaneously in his last symphony and the look in a baby’s face at the sight of branches swaying in the wind. The writer lives a fuller life than most, and therefore a better life. We are travelers who enjoy the journey as well as, perhaps more than, the destination.
 
And it’s not only the details we find fascinating, but the way the myriad, the sparkle, the density of these flows together into our lives. This recognition of processes makes for ideas. We internalize and assimilate them, make them our own and in this way we come to know the world. Our relationship to what we experience develops meaning because we are connected to it. And this world includes the very close and the distant in the mind. It was not so strange that Emily Dickinson saw a universe while rarely leaving her upstairs room. A wide, open mind can embrace a world without traveling. As a photographer told me, if you can’t see a hundred pictures on the way to the mailbox, you just aren’t looking.
 
And it’s interest, intentional curiosity, that gives us inspiration. We can’t wait for inspiration. Life is too short to waste in such needless folly. It’s like playing a lottery, waiting for a winning number. With free thought and effort, we can reduce the odds. Wonder, childlike gaze, goes a long way to the first sentences of a story or an essay. When the thought of writing seems as promising as walking through an empty warehouse, a stroll through a neighborhood stand of trees with its ten million leaves and all the colors of every rainbow will remedy any writer’s block. At the least, the shimmer of leaves in the slightest wind is more stimulating than the uniformly gray and depressing blank screen of a word processor.
 
Mike lives in Florida as a retired high school English teacher. He devotes most of his time working on his websites and freelance writing. This becomes a marriage of productivity and convenience because Florida summers tend to keep people inside away from the heat. His writing output tends toward social criticism. Mike’s hero is Jack Kerouac. Visit Mike at Artists Inlet Press.
 

Related posts:

1. The Inner Critic Doesn’t Belong in the Creative Process
2. Express Yourself Through Creative Writing
3. Writers Need the Right Mindset to Become Successful Authors
4. Faith: The Common Thread in a Diverse World
5. How can you change the world with $100?
6. Beyond Misery Junk!

As a writer, the search for a value system may not seem relevant to you but it is – and not just ‘relevant’, ‘central’. Even if you’re surprised you have any values, the first step as always is to identify them. Let’s see what comes up.

Go with your first responses to the following questions:

1. Do you have a personal belief/philosophy about writing as a public service? What is this?

2. Who does the written word help? When is writing useful? Where can it help? Why does it help? In what forms can it help?

3. Is there any clash between your personal belief about writing and your writing up to this point? What is this?

4. If someone reads/hears what you’ve written, what do you think they would believe your personal writing belief to be?

5. What do you believe to be OK in writing? What do you believe to be not OK in writing? (NB Is this a matter of your taste or a matter of your values?)

6. How much meaning/significance does writing have in your life?

7. What is the value you attach to yourself as a writer?

8. What sort of writer are you? Commercial, Professional, Hobbyist, writing for personal or professional development?

9. Why do you want to engage with an audience in this way?

10. Do you have any spiritual/ethical guidelines or frameworks which influence the way you write?

By now, you will begin to understand what values currently form the building blocks of your own writing philosophy. None of this relates to technical matters. This is all about the essential ‘you’ as a writer.
 
Now for an exercise on some moral considerations. In the light of what you’ve just been thinking about:

1. Write down 10 values you know apply to your writing

2. Prioritise 5

3. Prioritise 3

4. Draw a coat of arms using symbols (animals, shapes, objects, anything which represents your three ‘values’ etc) identifying these three and providing yourself with a motto which over-arches your writing activity. (Search in a Book of Quotations or make up your own)

5. If you’d find it useful, look at this whenever you settle down to a writing session.

A word about fiction writing!

In non-fiction writing, your theme is explored through your knowledge, experience and your value system. But, even more apparent, in fiction, the way your characters explore the situation you have presented them with will reflect your values. Character is plot and your character’s reactions result in change but any change described in a story you are writing is the result of your character’s reactions within the thematic framework of your values. This is the true purpose of your writing. Even opposing value systems, as expressed by antagonists, serve this end. You are answering your own questions.
 
Lizzie Gates is a professional writer and writing coach. Her clients include everyone from novelists to experts who want to share their expertise with a lay public. For further information please see her website http://www.lonelyfurrowcompany.com and her blog, http://lizziegates.blogspot.com

© Elizabeth Gates 2009

Related posts:

1. In My Opinion, I Think That I Believe This is Bad Writing
2. Successful Writing – Develop Essential Writing Relationships
3. Writer’s Block Is Only As Bad As You Let It Be
4. Writing – It’s All in the Conflict
5. What Creates Confidence?
6. Write a Memoir – How to Write About What Troubles You the Most

You spent a lot of time and energy on your book–your labor of love. You even had it professionally edited. But, often hidden reasons don’t surface, or you are simply unaware of your actions and attitude that stop your book’s success.

Here’s 10 reasons why your book is not “Over-the-Top” successful.

1. You don’t specifically define what you want your profits to do for you.

Does it mean taking a month’s vacation each year, buying a home, paying your child’s college tuition? Be sure you know what your money target is and what it will do for you before you chase it. It’s all important to have a goal beyond just the money. Money is just the means to the real life goals.

2. You shotgun your promotion efforts and don’t focus on one or two books.

So many times I hear colleagues adding another book, CD, or other product to their offerings. Just remember, you can only market one thing at a time well. Presenting too many products and making too many offers confuses your would-be buyer.

3. You set goals far too unreachable in the time allotted.

While it’s great to set goals, make sure you will move forward to the finish line. Stretch, but define your goal in reasonable terms so you believe you can reach it. Like a huge weight loss in six months, it doesn’t make sense to say, “I’ll make a million $ with this project.” When you take a step and succeed at it, you’ll feel confident you can keep succeeding. Remember after the goal, you have to “show up” and do the high-level activities.

4. You think your book project to death.

So many of us plan and plan, but don’t act enough. Think about my favorite motto, “Get ready, Fire, Aim!” Once you start, you may make mistakes, but feedback from your peers will help you grow much faster than you would in a vacuum. For me, “check and correct” means to put it out now, then adjust what’s needed to make the copy or offer much stronger. Often, the best way to kick start you is to copycat another successful person, then tweak to suit your specific talents and ideas.

5. You don’t think your book project is urgent and must be finished now.

So many clients get discouraged because they want their book to be easy and fast. That’s good, but to get to easy and fast, you need to learn what selling points make your book a winner inside as well as promotion campaigns that showcase your book’s benefits and best parts. What may look like an obstacle can help you develop strength and skills. You must focus all your intent, your direction and your attention toward you goal. Always expect the best, but make no expectations.

6. Make your plan realistic.

So many times book coaching clients say they want their book finished yesterday. If you do want to finish a project fast, realize you’ll have to put full time effort on it. That doesn’t mean a few hours a week. Since most small business people already work 30-40 hours, they need to know they’ll need to get up early several days a week or work into the midnight hours. Your coach recommends you put aside at least 10-15 hours a week to devote to your new project. When you put attention on your goal, its finish line will appear much sooner. You can always check with a successful business person to get their take on realistic.

7. You don’t follow through with actions. Distractions reign.

Follow this $25,000 key to finishing your important projects. This is the amount Charles Schwab paid for this advice.

One. Do the most important thing first. In your planner, put the top three High Level Activities (HLA) down for each day of the week. For example, 1. Write Chapter Two middle of how to’s, tips, and stories. 2. Visualize project completed and describe what you hear, feel and see now that’s it’s done. 3. Contact mentors or get resources to help get your project done the right way.

Two. Finish # 1 before you act on other projects. This is the key because we get easily distracted by the phone, piles on our desks, or friends and family. We really can only work on one thing at a time, although we kid ourselves about the benefits of multi-tasking.

Three. Write down in your organizer the three High Level Activities the night before. When you write, you commit more, and this message goes straight to your unconscious mind. There, you’ll notice the job is half done when you awake. Many people wait for coffee, then write down the to dos. This slows your start and you’ll notice it’s much harder to stay on the important tasks first.

8. You don’t treat your book as a business.

It’s one thing to write your memoir for your family. You don’t expect to market it. It’s another to write a self-help book that makes you the savvy expert, brands your business, and attracts many new clients or customers. For your best audience who you can help to a better life, get testimonials from to buoy up your web book sales letter. Create a book marketing plan before you leap to buy expensive programs or Amazon best seller promises. My web site sells far more copies than Amazon because I market it weekly. For more information on advanced marketing plans contact a professional book coach.

After the plan, you need to follow up with actions each day of the week. For myself, three high levels activities do just the right amount for the income I need to take two months vacation a year, get a new car, and Feng Shui my beautiful home in San Diego.

9. You ask for approval and feedback from friends or family.

Remember, they are not your audience. So, don’t ask for feedback from them. They will be too easy and not notice glitches, or they will criticize you because they don’t know your topic or agree with your philosophy. These attitudes pull you down when you are just starting out. Instead, ask for feedback from a professional coach for book writing, publishing, and article marketing. Quality coaching comes from someone who has been successful and knows the ins and outs of book selling. What we got in school, even college, did not show us how to write effective copy. Read a book on how to write a book or how to write articles and web copy. That’s the first and least expensive way to learn how to make your efforts sell well. Take a teleseminar that specifically shows you what to do first, second and last. Your thoughts are not enough. You need professional feedback along the way to succeed.

10. You give up when your project needs changes.

Most new authors just write their book, even edit it a few times and pronounce it’s done. Maybe done, but not finished. Always get a coach’s professional feedback in addition to editing. An editor can make your sentences good, but what about flow, order, getting your readers to stay motivated to finish all chapters? Without your audience finishing your book or web site sales letter, you miss the 24/7 sales team that spreads the word about your great book. You miss any great testimonials you could get, just for the asking. Think of challenges as a chance to grow your book project to a higher level. After you overcome them, you’ll discover the amazing fruit that feedback gives.

How many of these reasons can you identify with? When you pay attention to them and correct them before you launch your book, you’ll attract more buyers than you ever dreamed of!

Article by Judy Cullins. Book and Internet Marketing Coach Judy Cullins helps businesses get all the clients and sell all the books they want. Author of 11 business books including How to Write your Book Fast and Advanced Article Marketing 3-Book Special, Judy also offers free articles and eBook “Book Writing and Marketing Tips” with monthly ezine subscription at her site, www.bookcoaching.com.

Related posts:

1. Commitment; The Only Way to Get Your Book DONE!
2. Seven Weapons To Conquer The Giant Procrastination
3. The Realities of Becoming a Writer
4. Time Management: How to Stay More Focused On Your Goals
5. Writing Success – It’s Habit Forming
6. Five simple ways to boost your article writing confidence