Julie Duffy's Blog, page 162

How Not To Guest Post At StoryADay

This email is an example of how to NOT get a guest post at StoryADay. And I’ll tell you why.

Here’s what I received:

——

Message Body:

Hello!

I was stumbling upon the internet when I found your blog and after looking into few posts that you have published recently I can say that the quality of content is very powerful.

I am a blogger who writes on similar topics. I have some content which you’ll be interested in. Currently I can offer you the article with infographics named: XXXX XXXX XXXX. I would like to publish on your blog as a guest contributor, mainly because you have wider audience which might be interested in similar subject.

Please let me know if it is possible for you and I will send you my piece for review purposes.

Looking forward to hearing from you!

——

Here are the things that got it sent to my spam folder.

There is no greeting. It’s not hard to find my name on this site. Use it.
“stumbling upon the internet” and “quality of content is very powerful” sound like English-as-a-second-language and, in particular English-spammers-use.
“I am a blogger who writes on similar topics” – still very vague and spammy.
“I can offer you the article with infographics named XXX” — doesn’t tell me what the article will do, teach my people or whether the infographic is something you made yourself or something you’ve ripped off from other people. Doesn’t tell me how long it is or give me any sense of your writing style.
If an article has quotations, I want to know that you’ve read the original source yourself and chosen the quotes as I do with my Tumblr feed (with the exception of my outpouring of quotes the day that Maya Angelou died and I was pulling quotes that other people had posted. Even then I searched for more than one instance of any quote to sort-of-verify it was legit.)
“I would like to publish on your blog as a guest contributor, mainly because you have wider audience which might be interested in similar subject.” You want to post here because I have spent five years building up an audience and you want those eyeballs?  No. Tell me what my readers will get from your post, not what you’ll get.
There is no signature. Sign your name.
There is no link to anywhere I can see your previous work, or your own blog.

 

Do not do as the “person” above did. Send me good pitches for great guest articles and I’ll be happy to share my blog’s eyeballs with you. Send me crappy pitches and I won’t reply, and you’ll end up in the spam folder. Sorry.

[Write On Wednesday] Joy

Continuing on from last week’s prompt about a character experiencing an emotion, this week we’re focusing on Joy.

joy! by atomicity, on Flickr

The Prompt

Write A Story In Which A Character Experiences Joy

Tips

How to define ‘joy’? I’m going with ‘a momentary experience of intense happiness’, though CS Lewis famously mixed that feeling of happiness with one of ‘longing’ in his definition of joy.
The main character does not have to be the character experiencing the moment of joy. They can be an observer.
How do the characters observing the joy-filled character’s behavior react? Do they reflect the joy? Do they feel bereft because they lack it? Do they envy the other person? Do they show that directly by being sad, or do they bury it and act like a jerk?
Will the joyful moment happen at the beginning of your story and kick off all the events that follow? Will the character be sustained by the fleeting sensation or spend a miserable existence in a futile attempt to recapture it?
Will you build up to the moment of joy at the end of your story (huge climax? Happy ending?)
What does it actually feel like to experience (or witness) joy?
What kind of a character could really use a little joy, and how can you put them in a situation where they experience it? Do they deserve it? Does that matter?

Go!

[Write On Wednesday] Homesick

Character is king, in stories, but how can you make your character more realistic? Share an emotion that all of us have experienced. Examine it in the context of what your plot is doing to the character. This is an especially useful skill to work on if your stories tend to be set in fantastic, futuristic or historical settings. We can’t easily identify with Frodo fighting off goblins, but we can feel his pain as he longs for the Shire (and shed a tear when he and Sam face the reality that they probably won’t make it home again).

The Prompt

Write A Story In Which A Character Is Homesick

Tips

Make the homesickness fuel the plot somehow – have the character make a truly stupid decision in reaction to their homesick impulse. Or have them do whatever it takes to overcome it.
Put the homesickness in a surprising context — maybe a soldier finds himself ‘homesick’ for the place he had the worst experience of his life; maybe a 90 year old immigrant smells something that catapults her back to her childhood in a faraway land…
Maybe it’s not your main character who is homesick. Who else could be homesick and how would that affect your protagonist?
Are the people around the homesick character sympathetic? Impatient? Uncomprehending? Oblivious? Why?
Lead the reader through the emotions of homesickness as your character experiences it. Is it an ache in their forearms as they resist the temptation to call their old home phone number and see who answers? Is it a yawning hollow in their belly, as if they’ll never be able to eat enough to fill it? Is it a prickle behind their eyelids and a digging of nails into palms? Think about how you’ve felt when you’ve had that yearning to go home again.
If you’re not managing to conjure up the emotions to mine, try this: go to Google maps. Type in the address of somewhere you went once, for a shining hour or day or year — somewhere that holds special memories for you. Go into Street View. (Look up your first family home, your first school, that place you went on vacation once and had the torrid affair with  a local boy…). Look at the light, the sky, the architecture, the sidewalks, the window frames, the shop fronts. What do you feel? What do you notice? What had you forgotten? Use details like this to make your character’s longing for home seem real to a reader.

Go!

[Reading Room] The Day We Were Fish by Stephen Koster

It’s just an ordinary a day in the office, when suddenly the boss notices his staff are turning into fish…

This engagingly bizarre and whimsical short story by Stephen Koster reminds me why I love the short story. Short stories let you break all the rules. They are amuse-bouche. They are wonderful places for trying out ideas you could never sustain in a novel (or maybe you could, but a short story is certainly a good place to test out the idea).

As with many of the short stories I read, this one wasn’t perfect, but it was amusing and it split my brain open and filled it with all kinds of ideas, and it inspire me to write. Can’t ask for more than that!

SWAGr – October Accountability Post

You’re back! Or you’re here for the first time. Either way, good for you!

Welcome to the Serious Writers Accountability Group, where we post our goals for the coming month and ‘fess up to how much we wrote last month.

Leave a comment below telling us how you got on last month, and what you plan to do next month, then check back in on the first of each month, to see how everyone’s doing.

(It doesn’t have to be fiction. Feel free to use this group to push you in whatever creative direction you need.)

Don’t remember what you promised to do? Check out the comments on previous SWAGr posts.

And don’t forget to celebrate with/encourage your fellow SWAGr-ers on their progress!

****

Examples of Goals

“I’m going to write every morning from 6-7 AM.”
“I’ll write 250 words a day, minimum.”
“I’ll write 10,000 (fiction) words this month.”
“I’ll write one full story and revise another.”
“I’ll write four stories and submit one story to a publication.”
“I’ll outline that presentation I’ve been putting off working on, and create half of the slides.”
“I’ll track my time and see what’s getting in the way of my writing.”
“I’ll keep a journal to track my resistance to getting the work done.”

 So, what will you do this month? Leave your comment below:

(Next check-in, Nov 1, 2014. Tell your friends. )

Don’t forget, if you’re warming up for NaNoWriMo, you could do worse than write a few short stories. How about a collection of ALL THE PROMPTS from StoryADay May 2014? Yes? Click here.

October 2014 Newsletter

In This Issue:

Serious Writers’ Accountability Group October Check-In
Some Unsolicited NaNoWriMo Advice
A Little Bit Of Fun
A Favor


It’s SWAGr Time

The Serious Writers’ Accountability Group is back, for its October Check-In.

How’s your writing going? Need to set some new goals to keep you on track?

Check out what other people have been up to and leave your own writing commitments in this month’s SWAGr comments section!

One big change: from November onwards, the SWAGr check-in date will move to the First of the Month (easier for us all to keep track of!).

That makes today the perfect time to try the SWAGr challenge:

Set a simple writing goal for the next two and a half weeks.
Post your goal in the comments on this month’s SWAGr post.
Check back in on Nov 1 and let us know how you got on.


NaNoWriMo Is Coming

I know, from previous years, that you lot love a challenge and a huge number of you will be plunging into National Novel Writers’ Month in November.

Results of the 2013 survey

Some Unsolicited NaNo Advice

Outlining – Until I attempted novels, I was a dyed-in-the-wool ‘pantser’ (writing by the seat of your pants). Now, I’m more of a ‘write until I get stuck,  outline the next bit, write until I get stuck again’ kind of writer.

If you don’t have a clue about outlining (as I didn’t), I can’t recommend this book highly enough:

Million Dollar Outlines* by Dave Farland. And he actually does sell lots of novels, so his system works, at least for him. I like Larry Brooks’ Story Engineering* too, but it seemed to stall me, more than it helped me. Farland’s book was much better for my style of working. Take a look at them both and I hope one or other helps you. (*Amazon Affiliate links)

Mental Prep – Don’t forget about the free StoryADay Creative Challenge Workbook that you received when you first subscribed to this list. (Don’t know where it is? Get another copy here.)

It’s a kind of ‘guided meditation’ through the mental prep for a big challenge like NaNoWriMo. The workbook helps you:

Get excited about the challenge;
Think about practical ways to increase your odds of success/sticking to it;
Create a customized, personal ‘creative well’ that you can keep coming back to, throughout the challenge, to remind you about what you set out to do.

This is NOT an outlining tool, but rather a roadmap to your own creative goals (with your own personalized key to the pitfalls you want to avoid).

Training Runs – You wouldn’t run a marathon (or even a 5K) without doing a few training runs.

Sitting in a chair typing for 2000 words a day is more mentally and physically draining than you’d expect.

Naturally, I recommend short stories as a great way to warm up for a novel. You can write

Character studies,
Prequel events (that shape your characters/settings/mysteries),
Dialogues that explore the issues and characters in your novel-to-be.

Get writing NOW for November success!

If you’d like to get hold of a pre-made plan of how to get 10 short pieces written before Nov 1, AND support StoryADay at the same time, check out the Warm Up Your Writing Course in the StoryADay shop. It has three weeks’ worth of  writing assignments, audio lessons, workbooks, worksheets and handy checklists you can print and adorn with gold stars.

(If you’ve bought this in the past and have any problem accessing/finding your files, drop me a line and I’ll help you out.)

A Bit Of Fun

Even if you have no intention of writing a novel in November, you might enjoy this trip in to our blog archives in which I address writing, fear, and That Awkward Moment When I Met NaNoWriMo Founder Chris Baty

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Well, that’s it from me, for now. I hope your October is delightful and filled with stories and Story Sparks. Don’t forget to check in at the Serious Writers’ Accountablity Group page and tell us what you’re up to (get your friends to come along and post too. There’s nothing like a bit of peer pressure!)

Tweet This:

I’m making a commitment to my writing this month. Dare to join me? http://bit.ly/SWAGr #amwriting

Keep writing,
JulieP.S. Writer’s Digest is taking nominations now for their 101 Best Websites for Writers.  If you’ve enjoyed the StoryADay challenge, the community or the articles here, and would like to help expand StoryADay’s reach would you do me a favor and send an email to Writers.Digest@fwmedia.com with the subject line:”101 Best Websites”  and let them know what you love about StoryADay.org? They’re taking nominations until Dec 1. Thanks!

[Write On Wednesday] An Argument

A Pretty Argument by Just Ard on Flickr

Today I was writing a scene for a longer story in which my fish-out-of-water character comes up against people she has befriended but disagrees with. It’s very difficult for her to do this, and it was so much fun to write, that I’m recommending you try something similar.

The Prompt

Write A Story Centered Around An Argument

Tips

Make sure you make it clear what each character wants and what the stakes are for each character in this argument (in my case, my main character desperately wants to fix a mistake she has made that had consequences for her new friends, without getting them in more trouble. They want to help her and she’s determined to go it alone. The new friends variously want to help her because: they like her; they have a lot to lose too; it’s the right thing to do; they’re bored and want adventure; and simply to take advantage of an opportunity to tease a big brother mercilessly. Each character in the argument has a reason to be in it.)
Think about how you FEEL when you’re in an argument. Try to use some of that physicality — but without resorting to cliché. Be outrageous. Make up new metaphors that suit your setting. Have fun with this. You can always edit them out later.
If you want this to be more than a ‘talking heads’ situation, have your characters DO something as they argue: maybe they’re hiking along a dangerous ridge so they must remain in control or they risk plunging over the edge; maybe they’re doing the dishes; maybe they are hiding from the bad guys and the whole argument must be whispered…
Have some fun with this. Let your characters say things you would NEVER say, because you’re such a nice person (you are, aren’t you?)

Go!

[Write On Wednesday] Fall Into Autumn

Fall is coming (at least in my hemisphere). Can you smell it? Do you live somewhere with autumn colors. Have you ever been to a place like that? Have you missed it? Have you never lived somewhere like that and wonder what all the fuss is about.

The Prompt

Write a Story With An Autumn Theme

Tips

You can do bonfires, leaves, Halloween, whatever your local ‘color’ is.
If it’s not autumn where you live, think of this as ‘banking’ a story that you can revise and begin to submit to seasonal markets in the next couple of months. Lead times, people, lead times!

SWAGr – September Writing and Accountability Group Check In

You’re back! Or you’re here for the first time. Either way, good for you!

Welcome to the Serious Writers Accountability Group, where we post our goals for the coming month and ‘fess up to how much we wrote last month.

Leave a comment below telling us how you got on last month, and what you plan to do next month, then check back in on the second Wednesday of each month, to see how everyone’s doing.

(It doesn’t have to be fiction. Feel free to use this group to push you in whatever creative direction you need.)

Don’t remember what you promised to do? Check out the comments on previous SWAGr posts.

And don’t forget to celebrate with/encourage your fellow SWAGr-ers on their progress!

****

Examples of Goals

“I’m going to write every morning from 6-7 AM.”
“I’ll write 250 words a day, minimum.”
“I’ll write 10,000 (fiction) words this month.”
“I’ll write one full story and revise another.”
“I’ll write four stories and submit one story to a publication.”
“I’ll outline that presentation I’ve been putting off working on, and create half of the slides.”
“I’ll track my time and see what’s getting in the way of my writing.”
“I’ll keep a journal to track my resistance to getting the work done.”

Still not convinced? Check out Melissa Hoffman’s Guest Post on what an accountability buddy can do for your writing life.

 So, what will you do this month? Leave your comment below:

(Next check-in, October 8, 2014. Tell your friends. )

[Write On Wednesday] – Write A Letter

Photo by Meredith Harris CC Some Rights Reserved

Today’s prompt was suggested by the story I read yesterday, Incognito by Susan M. Lemere.

The Prompt

Write a story in letter form

Tips

Use two or more voices, or let us see only one side of the conversation.
The ‘letters’ can be email exchanges, text messages, Facebook updates, or imaginary hand-written correspondence from sweethearts separated by war, an ocean, feuding parents…whatever makes sense to you.
Try to introduce some mystery, some misunderstanding, or some desire on the part of one of the participants. Frustrate us, tease us, keep us guessing about how it’s going to turn out.

Go!