19-Year Old Author: Heather Beck

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Interview Sept 2009 

"What Legends are Made of" is a collection of four short stories filled with suspense, terror, and romance.  To read more about these and Heather Becks other publications, visit her official site.

PPM:  What steps did you take to getting published?  

Heather Beck:  A writer emerges a long time before the author does. Stemming from my love of reading, my initial path to publication started in grade two. I remember having an unyielding desire to create plots and characters that relate to the reader’s life but also push the boundaries of ordinary. English was always one of my favorite subjects in school and I found myself particularly good at effortlessly writing long pieces of fiction. Many of my teachers encouraged my writing and suggested I seek publication for it. However, it wasn’t until I was sixteen that I began writing with a professional intent. I had formed three intriguing characters and placed them in a tropical paradise that held dark secrets. While I wrote, I began researching the publishing business through books, seminars, and the Internet. I also networked at literary events.

 

Once I had a completed manuscript which I believed in, I chose a publisher who accepted my genre and, following their guidelines, submitted my material. At first I imagined how sublime it would be to have my work published. Then, after two months of waiting, my excitement turned to disappointment; my work had been rejected. Down, but not severally broken, I submitted to a different publisher. I was rejected, again. Three was my lucky number in this case as I gained interest from a publisher. After a telephone interview (I live in Ontario while the publisher was in British Columbia ) I received a print and e-book contract for The Paradise Chronicles. I now had a taste of being an author and wanted more.

My next two books were scary stories for kids. They are published under the Fable Farm series, Volume 1 and 2. They sold well so I wrote another collection of scary stories titled Ten Journeys Through The Unknown. I have five more books forthcoming in that genre.  My fifth and sixth books, which are paranormal romances, are for an older audience. What Legends Are Made Of found a home with a publisher as did Whispers In The Shadows. Writing coming-of-age literature, both literary (Strawberry Hill) and commercial (Vocations) also proved to be successful.

PPM:  Who inspired you and when did you decide to become an author? 

            

Heather Beck:  Being an avid reader early in life definitely helped to shape my writing abilities. I admired Jack London since his depiction of man vs. nature was based so much on instincts but also beautifully and carefully crafted. I was also influenced by Tennessee Williams. Like London , he’s honest when it comes to the human condition. Williams, however, uses human-to-human interactions to uncover the core which has become burdened by societal expectations. In my opinion, London and Williams were massively talented writers.   

 

From my experiences, I’d like to tell aspiring authors that it gets much easier after that first publication in your field. It builds a professional CV and allows for reviews and sometimes awards. I would also recommend a university education as it broadens horizons and, hopefully, leads to a good career. A lot of the time being an author is a labor of love so back-up plans are important. Nevertheless, reach for your dreams and test those odds which imply being a successful author is unlikely. 

Dr. Strangetype Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying And Love the Typewriter

by Kris Madden
 
THE BEGINNING

I had made up my mind, I was going to buy a manual typewriter. All of my literary heroes had written on typewriters, I should write on a typewriter. I wondered, “What would the archaic mechanical beast have to offer that a simple word processor could not?”

I was determined to find out.

I bought a Royal Futura from an antique store for $40. I Rushed home to start writing on it and wrote for 3 solid hours that night, before my hands cramped up so bad, I couldn’t physically write anymore.

Since then I've collected two more manual typewriters, a 1940's and my iron-horse, the IBM Personal Selectric. I had never written anything on a typewriter prior to that, but since then I’ve used one of my typewriters to write almost every day.

THE PROCESS

An old manual typewriter does not offer the ease of touch that a keyboard offers. To make an impression on the page, you've got to hammer the keys. Most people, who haven't used a typewriter, will push the keys all the way down to make their mark, but this is incorrect. The right way is to strike the keys so the hammer can swing up to the page with momentum. It's as if each keystroke is receiving Bruce Lee's 1-inch punch to print a clear character on the page.

Upon approaching the end of the line, a bell will ring, signaling you to swing the return bar, to return to your left justification. The sounds continue and the typewriter becomes a musical instrument of "CLACKS!" and "BINGS!". The faster you type, the faster the music, adding a mechanical soundtrack to your writing experience. As you continue to work, writing becomes harder physically; your hands can begin to ache, along with shoulders and forearms. The typewriter is a mechanical beast and you’re punishing and beating it into submission to produce a clean typed page. The demand the monster makes on the you, makes you forget about checking your email, or updating your status, or finishing chores; the act requires complete attention and focus. And it's that focus that pulls the writer within you, your best work.

NO BACKSPACE, NO CUT AND PASTE, NO SAVE, NO DELETE, AND IN SOME CASES NO TAB

That's right, when your working on an old typewriter, freelance writing, working on a character profile or writing a full novel, there's no going back and correcting what you've written. It makes editing a huge hassle and keeps you form editing yourself while writing. Instead, you must press on and finish the thing, keep typing and moving forward, the oil in the grease and gears of the machine are loosening up and the pace of the hammering is increasing violently. In an age where text can be manipulated in a thousand different ways before it is ever printed, the typewriter forces you to have a first draft for your story.

When working on a computer, I found that the first drafts of my books, weren't really first drafts, but really a mish-mash of the first through 50th draft mangled together in dull prose. And it's this process, of producing a first draft and then going through it, correcting, and then writing another draft, and repeating, that produces sound prose.

NO SPELLCHECK OR GRAMMAR CHECK

When you're writing, none of your words are underlined with red squiggly lines, or green squiggles for your fragmented sentences. Instead, everything looks right, and there's no computer telling you, to rethink that last sentence you wrote. It makes you think about the spelling of words, because there's no dictionary, forcing you to really learn your vocabulary. It removes distractions from the process of writing and gets your voice on paper.

NO INTERNET, NO APPLICATIONS, NO GAMES, ETC.

A Typewriter is used for writing. While there are avant-garde artists who have used them to produce artwork and music, their intended purpose is for writing. When I work on a computer, I can write some, I can check my email, I could look up this or that on Wikipedia, or update my website; these distractions pile up and before you know it your on an endless click-journey through cyberspace. A typewriter has none of those capabilities, so when you sit in front of the typewriter, the only thing you can do is write. And so that's what you do.

ACHIEVEMENT MOTIVATOR

I myself am motivated by achievement. When I can look at the work that I've done and hold it in my hand, it motivates me to work harder toward my goal whether it's finishing a article, a story or a full length novel. When working on a computer my achievements are virtual, they exist, but I cannot touch them and feel them. When working on a typewriter, after each writing session, you have a stack of pages with your print on them. They may be trash, they may be gold, but you can't just delete them and forget about them, instead they follow you and pile up in the corner, awaiting your review. And each time you see them, it only makes you want to write more, and finish what you're working on.

CLOSING STATEMENT

Lastly, for me when I close my eyes and picture in my mind what a writer looks like, it's a guy hunched over a typewriter on his desk a lamp illuminating the page. And each time I write on my typewriter, I felt more and more like a writer and my work seems more like a book. This was the writing process that all of my heroes had gone through in order to turn out a printed page, and I was following in their footsteps.

I have not hooked up my typewriter to my computer, or created some hybrid monster machine that allows me to twitter with my typewriter. I keep it just as it was meant to be. In this way, with all of its challenges and obstacles to overcome, the typewriter forces me to focus, to persevere, to edit, and most importantly to think. And most importantly, it makes me do the three things that every great writer does: write, write, write.

The Freelance Work Schedule

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by Joanna Bettelheim

Working from home on various projects affords a great deal of flexibility. But sometimes, in my obsessively-planned world, flexibility isn't what I'm looking for.

I kept pretty regular hours even after high school. They were not atypical for a college student: up until about midnight or later, sleeping through to ten and getting ready for class at eleven. Your time is basically your own to decide whether to study or write or goof, but there are still the absolutes of class time providing a rigid backbone, and eventually you fall into a pattern of dividing the hours a certain way.

Of course office life is defined by the nine to five. You know when to wake up, and you know that during the day you will be working, leaving your personal activities for after the drive home. This of course does not apply to things like Facebook, which seem to have wormed their way into the workplace as the number one time waster, causing employers to shake their heads. But basically, there are allotted hours for you and allotted hours for your work.

Working from home is very different. I suppose if I had a regular position for which I was simply working remotely it would be easier to create a work day in my living room, tackling the same eight-hour workload from the comfort of my sofa. But with a myriad of things to do, writing, researching, watching old episodes of TV shows to log online, there's no set period of time I must devote to each activity. I do set my alarm in the morning, and generally wake up around 8:30 each day to start up the computer and brush my teeth, grabbing a yogurt as I open up all the windows of my browser (at two of which devoted to social networking) and get settled in for the day.

I work on my articles, adding links to whatever is going up today and adding content to others scheduled to go out later in the week. I also look up other things I could write about soon, to keep my calendar full. My goal at the moment is to publish an article every weekday, sometimes more if there's just an embarrassment of content riches. I'm also taking frequent, short breaks for walking, just a few laps around the house or the block, trying to keep a foundation of movement in my day. Then there's the job searching, which is regularly random, checking the usual sites for something new and exciting that will pay me. And of course, thinking up ideas for posts here! It's all very exciting.

Lunch takes as long as it takes, though I could probably keep that around 30 minutes if I really wanted to, and then it's the same again as the morning, only with some DVD-watching paired with furious note-taking. Plus planning for dinner, which I have taken responsibility for. My culinary skills would wow you. Did you know you have to take the plastic off of the cheese slices? Kidding.

Anyway, the mix of work and extraneous activity is relaxing, and everything gets done. The only problem comes at night, when I could be knitting (I knit!) or reading a magazine, but I still feel the urge to work, and if I'm not, I feel just a little bit guilty. Since I always can be working, it seems lazy to not be doing a little work all the time. I think this tendency is magnified just because I'm not making money, so I want to feel that I'm actually working, justifying myself and every hour of my day. Which doesn't seem very healthy. 

So I'm trying to keep regular hours for work and play. Of course I'm writing this in the evening (posting it in the morning), as I take notes on the latest Project Runway episode, which gets logged mostly on Saturdays when Lifetime deems it fit to put the episode online so I can time out the scenes. Maybe I can't schedule out my time as rigidly right now, and maybe that's a good thing. It means I can have a friend over to watch movies while I write, or nap away a headache and work later into the night. It's good to stretch my adaptability muscles every once in a while. I'll think of it as training. Wait-lifting (gotta end with a pun).

Ethics and Freelance Writing

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by Cheryl Santa Maria

We freelance writers wear many hats.

In my two-plus years in the biz I've written company profiles, how tos and medical excerpts. I've always found this befuddling, as I'm not qualified to give advice on any of the aforementioned topics. A freelance writer needs to eat, though, so when an obscure assignment comes my way I do what many great freelance writers have done before me: I take a deep breath, roll up my sleeves, and spend the morning collecting information on Wikipedia.

I'm at the bottom of the writing totem poll which means I'm one step above broke, so I was pretty excited when an offer for a paid assignment appeared in my inbox. Without even reading the description I hastily accepted, promising that the piece would be completed as quickly as possible.

The freelance job itself was pretty easy - I was asked to write a couple of profiles about an “up and coming” health food distributor. Having never heard of the company or their products, I ran a quick Google search. The reviews were not good.

After spending an hour reading about the countless ways the company has swindled, deceived and stolen from their trusting clients I've come to the conclusion that this “up and coming” company is nothing short of an epic scam, and I've decided not to do the assignment.

I'll write about just about anything, but knowingly promoting a company that steals from people is wrong. Freelance writers provide a valuable service and we shouldn't have to compromise our morals for a measly buck. It's important to research prospective jobs and clients before agreeing to take on a job. Promoting a company with a shady reputation is more than unethical; it also damages your credibility, which can in turn damage your career. It's hard to turn down jobs when you're starving, but in the long run, it's worth it.

You can't put a price on a clear conscience.

Metawriting

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by Cedric Justice

Writing has become a deep and common part of my life.  I do it for fun, I do it for work, I do it on my phone to communicate with friends.  And language has been a passion of mine since my freshman year of college.

It is almost an unlikely turn of events that made me a writer (as one of many identities we all have).  And normally, I wouldn't call myself a writer because I'm not paid for it in a typical I-write-novels-and-drink-too-much-because-I'm-depressive way.  (By the way, I'm a big fan of the hyphen.)  But when I stand back and look at it, I am indeed a writer.

I do data analysis and energy efficiency during my day job.  This means that I sit in an office and have a computer in front of me all day.  Much of my job is numerical in nature, sure, but you'd be surprised how much reading and writing an analyst like me would do.  From research on what the newest greenhouse gas laws may be to writing the results of a demand-side air-conditioner control project, I spend much of my day immersed in figures and text. 

I swim, breathe, and eat text—figuratively speaking, of course (literally would mean I am eating the newspaper or Alphabet Soup: I strongly recommend that you all stop misusing the term).

When I was young, though (here's that turn of events I was talking about...) I found myself to be an avid reader.  Sure, there were plenty of big words I didn't understand, but I had a lot of positive reinforcement when it came to the reading game.  I had a Speak and Read (Texas Instruments: tools for nerdy children), which was like a Speak and Spell but was for reading.  I also had those 33.33 RPM Disney records where you read along with Baloo and the kid in the Jungle book.

At first, I was just concerned with punctuation.  I still remember using a pen and drawing a line at each comma, period, apostrophe, or exclamation point.  Later, as I began to understand these things, I was annoyed that I messed up the readability of these books. I have issues to this day about writing in books (an many would say, I have an obsession with punctuation as well).

I think I started to understand text sooner than I could even process the audio signal.  I talked like a normal kid and all, but much of my utterances were bigger, cognitive blocks: Idon'know (the T was silent) was a concept, not a subject, negator, verb.  Yet in text, I was finding my way..

As I progressed through school, I was an advanced reader.  But my comprehension was still sort of low.  I may have devoured books, but my memory couldn't really keep up with it all.  The symbols on the page: those made sense.  I could make sense of them, make concepts come alive.  But I'm not a visual learner, so I don't really get too many pictures in my head when I read: the pictures are nebulous, out of focus, and blurry at best.

I remember being frustrated with English class in 7th grade.  They were trying to impose a grammar on all of this stuff that I was familiar with.  I knew how words worked: I could piece them together.  But this: this was too complicated.

Further back, I still remember in first and second grade learning how the apostrophe worked and what its (no apostrophe there!) function was.  To this day, it frustrates me that so many do not understand this simple device.  And it isn't like it is out of the way on the keyboard.  Just move your right pinky over one slot.  '  .  See, right there, you can do it too.  '  .  Now, isn't that easy?  Yes, people, Im isn't a word, and neither is dont.  Cant means dialect; it does not mean cannot.  But I digress, as I usually do in my writings.

Let's fast forward a bit to where I first started to become the grammarnazi or snappy verbal dresser that I am today.

Throughout the epochs of a school years, we continue to grow as intelligent beings (except the football players, of course) and become more and more aware of our surroundings and self.  I was 15, and sat in on my first day of Spanish class.  Sure, I had started a year late, but that should be fine... I'm a smart kid.

"¿Como estas?"

Oh, this will not do.

Eventually, though, I was able to decode it.  I had learned the numbers in Spanish with my friend when I was 8 from his nanny.  I could do this too. 

Spanish opened my eyes and ears to grammar.  It was much like when I took a vacation to Australia or Japan: being the fish out of your normal pond allows you to really see all the assumptions you were making.  In 7th grade, my teacher was trying to tell me about the algae that I've been breathing my whole life.  I was totally unaware of it.  But introduce me to driving on the left (pink algae in my world) and mackerel over rice at a subway station? You've caught my attention.

te llamas?" bugged the hell out of me.  It wasn't until second year that the reflexive constructions were illuminated.  And now, I understand how to use a reflexive myself.  And, yes, it does bug me when people say "He and myself went to the mall".  (This mistake invariable hovers around the concept of a mall 82% of the time.)  (Yes, that was a joke.  Keep up.)

I somehow ended high school in fourth-year Spanish.  I guess I caught on.  And then, my language-learning went on hiatus so I could retrain the analytical side of my brain for a while.

I entered college as a computer engineer. Yes, I liked video games and I really wanted a computer.  And yes, I'm old and middle class enough that a computer wasn't a regular part of my life.  Sure, some of my richer friends had computers you could play games on, but my 8086 with no hard drive stopped being fun a long time ago.  (Screw you 3.5" floppies and DOS!)  So, I managed to slog my way through a couple years of computer programming.  C, FORTRAN, C++.  It was all so wonderfully logical.  Unlike with human language, it was incredibly regular: no irregular verbs here, no good/better/best exceptions, no am/are/is, nothing.  Clean, simple.

And drop-dead fucking boring.  After the third term, we stopped learning new languages.

Again, I say, this will not do.

Not to mention, I just wasn't very good at it.  My calculus and physics classes were going splendidly (I've always been decent at math), but these coding classes were killing me.  Hundreds of hours investing in these programs (that didn't do anything neat, by the way) and I'd still get a C or a B.  This is an affront to my identity as a Straight-A Student as well [stomp!].  By my third term of my first year, I had to take a fun class.  And for some reason, it was just very clear to me that Intro to Linguistics would be that class.

The class changed my life. And eventually my major.  And the way I write, interpret language, and learn.

The thing about Linguistics is it isn't what most think it is.  Linguistics is the scientific study of language.  It is the blue, pink, and purple algae of every pond known to man.  And I was going to study it.

This led to me learning Chinese my senior year of college.  But in order to graduate (I just changed my major from computer science to linguistics, which was my minor for the previous two years), all the science classes I took were moot (not mute, people).  I had to finish a 203 class in language to graduate. I also had to have one year of a non-Indo-European language.  That means that Spanish, German, Hindi, French all are out of the 1 year game.

Well fuck.

The only way to pull this off would be to take 200-level Spanish and 100-level Chinese together.  Chinese 5 days a week, Spanish 2 days a week.  And on Tues and Thurs, I would run from my 9-10 Chinese class to my 10-12 Spanish class.

It isn't as bad or as confusing as you think.  It ended up being just fine.  你好朋友. ¿Qué pasa, amigo?  See?  Easy.

As I learned more an more about language, though, my writing improved.  My computer coding classes made my grammar and spelling bulletproof (you try putting grammar through a computer processor and compiler that cares whether something is capitalised or not; misspellings are not an option in C!) and my linguistics training immersed me in the construction and deconstruction of a verb phrase, I was ready for the blogging revolution to hit once I was gainfully employed two years later.

That's right, Livejournal, you changed my life.

In 2001, I got my Livejournal account.  And from then on, I've been writing in it nearly daily.  Technologies have improved, and so has our political situation, but for the next 8 years, I've become absolutely addicted to exposing fear tactics, commenting on politics, and otherwise networking socially. (By the way, 8 years ago today was an event that lived in infamy: I got kicked out of Mt. Rushmore Park.  Yeah, that's right, I was that self-absorbed... read it for yourself.)

Once in a while, I'll be inspired to write a thoughtful, well-written, poetic piece about the art of riding a cycle to work when crackheads cut you off on a tricycle, but most of the time, I scour the news and current events, blather on about data or energy, or, up until a few months ago, write a steaming anger-ball about what a fucking idiot Bush was.

I'm over it now.  And it all evolves.  And, yes, I still adhere to commonly agreed-upon syntax rules (because, yes, I do subscribe to the Grammar Girl podcast thankyouverymuch) because I find that it is fully engrained in me at this point.

I've come a long way from drawing lines from commas, haven't I?  I actually know what I'm doing now.  And I do it regularly, and it is just a part of my life, social networking or not...

And shit, I even get paid for it.

Poetry and the Inner Sense

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by H. T. Kainaroi 

Above all, I am a dreamer, and it is through my dreams and my imagination that I create.

Poetry and the Inner Sense

With eyes we see, with ears we hear, with hands we touch, with the nose we smell, and with the mouth we taste.  There is, however, another sensory tool.  It is the mind and the soul, and with this we think, and we produce thoughts and dreams.  It is there that one travels away from the world as it is traditionally known, as it is perceived in most of one's life in an ongoing process of mainly physical senses.

It is the inner sense, the dream world within that allows one to truly feel.  The world in its physicality and day-to-day events do indeed play a part, but it is when attention is directed at this inner sense that the material journey undergoes a change, and is perceived through an alternative lens.

Poetry is one very significant medium in which this transpires. This as well as any other form of art is a literal pouring out of ones dreams into this world, to remind the self and others that, "I am still here and my spirit is alive.  I travel and explore within the world of my mind and my soul and what I see and experience there is of a truer nature than anything that I come across on a purely materialistic level.  Here I am to present it."

It is not a denial of the physical world.  Rather, it is a realization.  Some live for money and/or temporary pleasures.  Others live life only in a process of basic adaption, adaption to the forces of nature, to the seasons, and to what society presents as right and wrong.  However, for the dreamer, for the poet, they say no.

What was mentioned before as living life solely in adaption and/or mere survival is in itself a perception.  In the world of dreams, however, this changes.  And it is the most real worldly interaction because it comes from within.  It is not what one is told to do and is not governed by events only experienced by the five usual senses.  As this interaction comes from within, the sixth sense is added.  It was always there, it is for everyone, but for some it is realized and magnified.  Because it steps away from the usual awareness, the events of the material world no longer govern, but the poet governs because the poet can observe it and see inside it and through it.  As it is the sense from within, this is done as the self, the true self.  One can then realize they are an individual in the truest sense, and inside them there is world of their own, a world of their creation that they can explore forever.  Ultimately, this is freedom.

It is then possible that one can realize such a world in everyone, whether sleeping, dormant , tired, or awake; that everyone is related, and all make up the world.  Poetry reveals this, that there are relations, there are connections, and there is life.  No one is alone.

Streaming words on a piece of paper:  People observe this and many may say. "I don't understand" or "this is absurd."  The dreamer knows that such a reaction is really a blessing, because it only means that the usual sensory world by itself has expressed separation, and is separate.  However, the misunderstood nature of poetry as well as art in general, encourages the need for an understanding, to look past what is presented and to look inside.  If this is done, they who at first were confused and did not understand become poets and dreamers as well.

Time Management for Freelance Writers

by Morgan Barnhart

Just seeing those words, 'time management', makes me cringe. As a freelance writer and fiction author, I am the worst when it comes to managing my time well, but I am serious about publishing my work. I tell myself that I'll accomplish all of these vast projects in one days time, but it never comes to fruition. Why is that? Because I set unrealistic goals for myself and when I don't accomplish everything I set out to do, I get frustrated and put off writing a character profile, finishing and article, or editing a chapter of my book, for a lot longer than I should.

So instead of being unrealistic, like saying I'll get up at 6AM every single day, I say I'll get up at 8AM. I can handle that. Kind of.

by cheesefetus

When it comes to writing, I'll devote 2 hours a day to it. I don't say when, I don't say what I'll write, I just have to spend a straight 2 hours a day devoted to writing whether it's freelance writing or creative writing. I can handle that. I can work it in at any point of the day but I have to do it.

When it comes to other things that I must juggle along with writing and consulting, I decide to dedicate one task to that day. If I need to get a bunch of articles written, I devote all of them to one day. Crazy, right? But they get done. If I do them sporadically, they tend not to get done as quickly since I won't have as much motivation. I know, seem backwards, but it works for me.

You need to find what works for you when it comes to time management as a freelance writer. Can you devote a couple hours a day to writing in between everything else? Can you devote one other small task to your day as well? Start small and work your way up, don't let everything boggle you down. Take your time, write a list if you must and hack at the to-do list a little at a time.

My suggestion for getting started in your organizing adventure would be to download a desktop program called Rainlendar. You can assign events and tasks for yourself right there on your desktop and it reminds you very clearly that it needs to be done, somewhere where you'll be able to see it at all times. It's a fantastic program for freelance writers or novelists and best of all, it's free!

Writer's Block Is A Myth

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by Morgan Barnhart

The writer's one weakness has always been the dreaded writer's block, but what if I told you that writer's block is a myth brought on by laziness and lack of self-discipline? Freelance writers are very susceptible to it. I'm not trying to downplay your feelings as a writer, but just hear me out for a moment if you're serious about finishing and publishing your work.

What do you always hear when people complain of writer's block? “I have no motivation”, “I just stare at the screen and nothing comes out”, “I got distracted by the TV”, and the excuses go on. That's exactly what they are; excuses. They're a reason you give yourself so you don't have to write your articles or that novel you've been working on.

I remember reading an interview in Writer's Digest once where they said, “Authors write. If you're not writing, you're not an author.” It's a pretty solid statement.

by patronus4000

If you're stuck in a rut and want to write but feel like you just can't, then write anyway! Force yourself to write. Turn off and tune out all distractions (this includes the internet, however, if you need music, that's permitted) and write away! Write whatever comes to mind. And I mean, whatever comes to mind. I don't care if it's just, “This is stupid, I don't feel like writing so I'm forcing myself to write.” Just that simple bit of writing will stretch out your fingers and get those juices flowing. Nine times out of ten you'll keep writing and from that incoherent rambling you'll suddenly be in the mood to write something you actually care about.

You need more motivation, you say? There's a website called Write Or Die by Dr. Wicked. There are three different levels of difficulty but with each level as soon as you stop writing, it gives you either a very annoying flashing light, sound or music. Once you start writing again, it stops. Sounds fun, right?

You might be thinking, “But I write for fun! I don't want to force myself to write!” That's all well and good, but if you want to be a serious writer, you need to actually write something. Writing can be fun again, I promise, but first you have to cut off the fat in order to get to the juicy bits.

Break out of that writer's block today and get back to writing!

Twenty Years of Teaching People How to Write Books

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by Michael Crawley

 

Over my twenty years of teaching people how to write genre fiction books, I’ve distilled my pontifications on the basics to just over a single page.  This is it.

We’ll start with some vital trivia.  (How’s that for an oxymoron!)   

               

There are a few things that I tell all my pupils in their first lesson.  If they can learn them, they are 50% of the way towards selling their work. 

1) Please format double-spaced, 1 1/4" margins, ragged right, paragraphs indented three spaces and with no gaps. Use a plain 12-point typeface.

2) To sell, write exactly what one specific editor wants to buy.  Submit it. To do that, you must know what that editor is currently publishing; have a copy of his guidelines, and follow them! Don't write the story or novel that's been mulling around in your head, write the book they want to buy.

From there on, what I teach is simply the details.

2a) It doesn’t matter what you want to write, if you are writing to sell. If you don’t sell your story or novel, it won’t be read.   Write what the editor thinks his readers want to read.  He might be wrong but he has the cheque book.  That does not mean ‘selling out’.  There are over a million English language publishers.  Whatever your pet topic or favorite genre, someone publishes it.  Find that someone.  Get their guidelines.  Adjust to fit them.  Write what you enjoy writing - but in their language, following their rules, to their length if you're serious about publishing.

3) It’s hard work, but write simply.  The more readable your text, the more it will sell.  Ask Messers King, Spillane, Churchill, Melville, etc..  Convoluted, verbose text is easy to write.

We write with ease to show our breedin’ 

But easy writin’s cursed hard readin’~Sheridan.

Your words, sentences and paragraphs should all be, on average short and simple.*  Avoid conjunctions and subclauses.  Write SVO - Subject, Verb, Object.  That’s the natural order in English.  Keep your ‘ing’ words to a minimum and in particular, don’t open sentences with them. 

4) Write dynamically.   If you write fictional books, your opening sentence and paragraph should be a) Action, b) Dialogue, c) Intriguing.  If it is passive or ‘explanation’, your opening paragraph will be both the first and the last that is read.  If you write nonfiction, your opening should either offer a benefit or be intriguing.  Every word should do something. 

If I write anything a reader might skip over, I delete it.  Elmore Leonard.

5) Use structure.  Unless it is very short, fiction should be three acts.  25% dynamic introduction of the elements.  50% development and complications.  25% unraveling towards a cathartic ending.  You should have plot-twists at those 25% and 75% points. 

If you write nonfiction books, you do almost the same.  Open by telling the readers what you are going to tell them.  Tell them.  Tell them that you told them. 

6) In fiction, write a plot.  Plot is: A sympathetic character has a problem.  Her efforts to solve it are thwarted by complications.  In the end, out of her character and the circumstances, there is a cathartic resolution. 

7) Edit and rewrite.

I never write four words but I cross out five.   Dorothy Parker. 

The first draft of anything is ****.  Ernest Hemingway.

8) Finish your text and submit it.  

In this piece, my average word has five letters.  My average sentence has eight words.

I teach people how to write what will sell; not how to sell what they write.

Internet Speak Killed The English Star

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by Morgan Barnhart

I tried making the title a parody of 'Video killed the radio star', but failed. This is a blog expanding on what Peevish Penman Editor, Carrie Bailey said over here.

Anyway, I haz relizd tht intrnt has keeld gramr & spelng. I no gud spelr but I at lest no how to spel, 'you'.

Ok, wow, that sentence took me about 10 minutes to write. Trying to find ways to misspell words does not come easily. That is why I've never understood why people find it easier to write in shorthand rather than just typing out the whole word. Example: 'You' has turned into 'u'. I mean, it's two more letters, come on people!

*Breathes*

I'm not trying to judge, really, I'm not. I spell words incorrectly and make grammar mistakes all the time. But it's usually for a word that I don't use that often and I immediately fix the mistake. It's natural to not know how to spell a few words here and there, nothing wrong with that.

But if you're too lazy to spell 'you' or 'are' when asking, “How are you”...then...get out. Just get out.

Seriously, though, I read an article that basically said internet speak is actually a good thing and helps us evolve. I mean, since Merriam-Webster decided to make a few words from the internet into official words, then internet speak is obviously A-OK, right?

I disagree. While Merriam-Webster may say it's ok, English teachers are getting frustrated. Even though it also says in the article that teachers reprimand students who use internet speak in the classroom, does that really do anything? I mean, really. The teacher can't follow them home and reprimand them whenever they get online.

What really bothered me about this article the most is the ending when it says, "So while your English teachers may want to hold the dividing lines between proper and improper word usage taught, they should just chill (not an accepted use of that word, at least for the moment) because widespread usage eventually overrides accepted grammatical conventions."

He's basically saying to give up on trying to fix the mistakes because in time, we're all going to be saying and typing incorrectly and then it'll be acceptable.

I think it's great that our language evolves, but when it begins to dumb us down, that's where I'm old fashioned and would at least like for us to distinguish when is and is not alright to speak the way of the internet.

Am I alone in this thought process? Please tell me I'm not just a raving fool.

A Glimpse Into the Self-Publishing Process

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by David Bakke

 

It all began about a year ago.  I was thinking back on the absolute financial hell that I had escaped several years back, and how I made it to my current state of relative financial stability. I became a self-published author.

 

With the current state of the economy, I thought that maybe an outline of my personal story, along with everything that I did to get on the road to financial health may be of interest to others and maybe I could help others with the same problems I encountered. 

 

Writing it was the easy part, though I didn't know it at the time.  That took about 4 months, all done in my spare time--before and after work, weekends, etc. Self-publishing is harder.

 

Knowing that no agent was going to bust down my door and beg me to let him publish my book, I went the self-publishing route.

 

Rounds of editing, approving the cover copy (the text that goes on the back cover, inside flap, etc.) is extended work.  And that's the easy part.

 

I've spent the last month intensely attempting to gain footholds in social marketing networks such as Facebook, Stumble Upon, Twitter, etc (tons of work).  I set up my own blog, an autoresponder series for people that want to sign up for my newsletter, and I contribute to 6 other blogs on the topic of personal finances and contribute to three different writer's websites.  And that's just for the online marketing efforts.

 

Though I have no idea, it seems like the "real world" marketing will involve pounding the pavement, taking my book to independent bookstores, and anyone else who may be interested in it.

I am completely open to any comments, suggestions, feedback or ideas, either here or at Author Nation.