Rob Bignell's Blog, page 263

Five Great Quotations about Originality

���I���ve heard so many people saying, ���I want to be the next Wilbur Smith or the next Dan Brown.��� Well, I don���t! I want to be the first Brenden Gerad O���Brien.��� - Brenden Gerad O���Brien

���Invention, it must be humbly admitted, does not consist in creating out of void but out of chaos.��� - Mary Shelley

���Start telling the stories that only you can tell, because there���ll always be better writers than you and there���ll always be smarter writers than you. There will always be people who are much better at doing this or doing that���but you are the only you.��� - Neil Gaiman

���Art begins in imitation and ends in innovation.��� - Ann Handley

���Perhaps the hardest thing in all literature ��� at least I have found it so: by no voluntary effort can I accomplish it: I have to take it as it comes��� is to write anything original. And perhaps the easiest is, when once an original line has been struck out, to follow it up, and to write any amount more to the same tune.��� - Lewis Carroll

Professional Book Editor: Having your novel, short story or nonfiction manuscript proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. I can provide that second eye.



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Client���s screenplay receives honorable mention

A long-time editing client of mine received an honorable mention at an international film festival for the adaptation of one of her novels. Jana Meador���s ���Ribbons of Fall,��� adapted from ���Under The Magpie's Wings,��� earlier this week was named Spring 2016 honorable mention for script writing at the Depth of Field International Film Festival. For her efforts, she���s been invited to pitch ���Ribbons of Fall��� to two producers through Hanhai Studio in Burbank, Calif.

Released in 2014, ���Under the Magpie���s Wings��� follows a family of an Italian immigrant farmer Vin Savelli and his grandson Marco, whose lives change forever thanks to a single decision during one night on their Montana ranch. Will the strong bond between generations be destroyed by the burdens they each have to carry? Marco���s quest to find the truth behind his family secrets is yet to be uncovered. The novel is available for purchase online.

Professional Book Editor: Having your novel, short story or nonfiction manuscript proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. I can provide that second eye.



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Editing client releases latest occult thriller

An editing client of mine has published his latest novel, the occult thriller ���The Devil���s Oven.��� L. Jordan James takes us inside the Devil's Oven ��� another name for Pawtuck Penitentiary ��� where dark things brew, grow and spring to life. The demon Petrocelli is one of those dark things brewing, waiting for his chance. Jonah is a convict, someone with a dark past, a man who should join Petrocelli to take over the world, but doesn't. It's because of Elizabeth. Elizabeth's embrace is where Jonah finds love and redemption. Jonah and Petrocelli are on a collision course. If Jonah loses then that darkness ��� Petrocelli ��� will escape Pawtuck, spill out into the world like a black cancer, and rule by anger and hate. The novel is available for purchase online.

Professional Book Editor: Having your novel, short story or nonfiction manuscript proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. I can provide that second eye.



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Tax forms self-published authors must file

As a published author, you���ll have to pay taxes on your earnings from book sales. As most self-published authors are self-proprietors, that means you���ll need to fill out some additional forms with the IRS.

A minimum of three forms have to be filed with the IRS:
��� 1040 ��� This is the income tax form that you typically complete. You���ll have to fill out some new lines on the form, however, namely those regarding business income.
��� Schedule C ��� This is the profit and loss form for sole proprietors. Numbers from this form are needed to completed your 1040.
��� Schedule SE ��� This form is used to determine your self-employment tax, which is your contribution for Social Security and Medicare. Numbers from this form also will be used to complete your 1040.

There may be additional federal forms that you must complete, specifically for taking deductions, such as for a home office, or for health insurance coverage you might take out through your business.

For many first-time authors, federal taxes ��� thanks to the self-employment tax ��� comes as a surprise. Given this, always set aside a portion of your earnings from your sales rather than spend all of it. You can estimate how much you will have to pay in taxes by going to irs.gov and your state revenue department website to review tax rates against what you���ll likely earn. Short of that, a good idea is to set aside 30%-40% of your income for federal and state taxes; that amount is probably high for most authors, but arguably a windfall is better than a shortfall come April 15.

In addition, if you���ll have to pay more than $1,000 a year in taxes to the federal government, you���ll need to pay that in four portions, due two weeks after the end of each quarter (Federal quarters end on April 15, June 15, October 15, and January 15.). The payments should be in equal amounts, so if you owe the feds $1000 in taxes, each quarter you would owe $250. You may have to do the same for your state if it collects income tax.

IRS Publication 583 (available online for free via irs.gov) offers suggestions on starting a business and keeping records for it.

Many authors work from their kitchen table or den so slightly reduce their taxes by taking tax deductions for having a ���home office.��� If you wish to take that route, then check with the IRS on what it will allow for tax deductions; IRS Publication 587 (also available online for free via irs.gov) covers that topic.

When filing taxes, be honest! IRS audit rates are higher for sole proprietors than for corporations, probably because the opportunity to hide income is easier for self-employed individuals.

Final note: You also may need to pay state and county sales tax on books you sell at an event. Laws differ from state to state, so check with your state���s department of revenue for the correct forms to use.

Professional Book Editor: Having your novel, short story or nonfiction manuscript proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. I can provide that second eye.



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Break a bad habit: Ingrained vs. engrained

Among the many words we mishear (or perhaps hear ���mispronounced���) is ingrain and ingrained. Because of this, many spell it engrain and engrained.

Ingrain means to impress deeply while ingrained means impressed deeply, as in The habit had been long ingrained in Aunt Dawn���s morning ritual.

Because engrain/engrained are increasingly used, many dictionaries now list it as acceptable variants. Still, their use is rarer than ingrain/ingrained.

Bottom line: Go with ingrain/ingrained until it becomes the rarely used variant of engrain/engrained.

Professional Book Editor: Having your novel, short story or nonfiction manuscript proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. I can provide that second eye.



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Four writing prompts: Dreams

Good stories center on the clashing of characters��� goals and motivations. Sometimes a character���s goals and motivations arise upon achieving his dreams. Here are four writing prompts for stories that center on the motivation of dreams.

Man vs. nature
Our main character, an average bloke, resolves to achieve some great physical feat, perhaps of climbing a mountain. What motivates him to actually fulfill this dream? Why does he dream of accomplishing this specific dream? What obstacles does he face in actually fulfilling this dream or as making the climb?

Man vs. man
The protagonist faces a difficult decision: Should he help make happy the person he most loves by breaking his own heart? Why does our protagonist loves this person? How does he try to get this person to be happy without breaking his heart?

Man vs. society
What if our main character learns that to achieve his dream, he must despoil something? Why would he care about this something? How do others in his corporation/military unit/family encourage him to pursue his dream despite this despoiling? How does our main character come to decide his dream is not worth the price?

Man vs. himself
What if the main character, who has the opportunity to realize her dream of going someplace or holding a certain position, must leave behind her fragile mother or father to do so? Which would he choose and what would be the thoughts he���d have along the way in making this decision?

Professional Book Editor: Having your novel, short story or nonfiction manuscript proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. I can provide that second eye.



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How to create a character���s background

One of the most important steps you can take when outlining a short story is to create your main character���s background. This is not necessarily information used in your story but is in your head as you write it.

Why think about this? Since stories center on characters��� goals in conflict with one another, knowing not just their goals but their motivations for them is vital. While those motivations will surface in the story, thinking about how they even came to be can help you better picture a character in your mind ��� and then on paper ��� as you draft the story.

To create this background, always begin by thinking about the character���s goal or objective in the story. For example, suppose our character is searching for a place where she feels comfortable.

Next, determine what is the character���s motivations for achieving this goal/objective. Suppose that the character has never liked any community she has lived in, has always felt like an outsider in them. This unsettling feeling has left her feeling alienated and her social needs unfulfilled. Her motivation is to feel like she fits in and to have positive relationships with people who live in her community.

All of that is quite abstract, of course. So you want to develop the character���s background by deciding how various life events resulted in her having that motivation. To that end, you night ask yourself:
��� What does the character most fear? What event caused this fear?
��� What are her favorite things (food, movies, TV shows, songs, books)?
��� What are her mannerisms?
��� What are three things she might commonly say?
��� What are her attitudes?
��� What are her habits?
��� What is her appearance? How does she dress?

Be very specific and detailed when answering these questions. For example, to ���What are her mannerisms?��� you might say about our outcast character that she is excessively self-conscious and so tends to hang at the back of the crowd, feels more comfortable in more dimly section of a room filled with people, casts her gaze downward to avoid eye contact, and never initiates the conversation (at least not without feeling her stomach churning). Perhaps she is this way because she grew up in a very critical family in which everything had to be just right.

Knowing those details can help you write the solution to the character���s problem. For example, perhaps the problem isn���t the community she lives in but the fact that isolates herself in each one. To fit in, she will need to step out of her shell.

Professional Book Editor: Having your novel, short story or nonfiction manuscript proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. I can provide that second eye.



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Five Great Quotations for Aspiring Writers

���To be a successful fiction writer you have to write well, write a lot���and let ���em know you���ve written it! Then rinse and repeat.��� - Gerard de Marigny

���We have to continually be jumping off cliffs and developing our wings on the way down.��� - Kurt Vonnegut

������read a lot and write. Don���t worry if you don���t get your first, fifth or tenth novel published, if you keep going you���ll make it.��� - Katie Fforde

���If you want to write, if you want to create, you must be the most sublime fool that God ever turned out and sent rambling. You must write every single day of your life. You must read dreadful dumb books and glorious books, and let them wrestle in beautiful fights inside your head, vulgar one moment, brilliant the next. You must lurk in libraries and climb the stacks like ladders to sniff books like perfumes and wear books like hats upon your crazy heads. I wish you a wrestling match with your Creative Muse that will last a lifetime.��� - Ray Bradbury

���Accept that the world may never notice this thing you worked so hard at. And instead, do it for it, find a job, find a way of living that gives you an hour or two or three a day to do it, and then work your ass off sending out, trying to get out there, but do not put the pressure on the work to do something for you. Because then you���re going to be writing dishonestly and for the market instead of for the characters and your story.��� - Andre Dubus III

Professional Book Editor: Having your novel, short story or nonfiction manuscript proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. I can provide that second eye.



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Writing affirmation: I���m just happy to write

One of the reasons authors suffer writers block is because their mind focuses on the perceived inadequacy of their writing. Most times, these perceptions are too harsh, going far beyond any constructive, honest self-appraisal. When this occurs, the mind shuts down, leaving the writer to say, ���I don���t know what to write next��� and almost any suggestion of what to pen is met with a ���That won���t work.���

To overcome this problem, focus less on the problems you���re having writing and more on how the act itself benefits you. Uppermost among these benefits is that it is pleasurable. Writing for the pure enjoyment of it can relieve the pressure of writing with the aim of publishing or to sell a book. Another benefit is to simply exercise your skills. An athlete does not aim to perform as if in the championship game but instead uses training and practice to develop his skills and strength and speed. Likewise, you should not try to pen a bestseller at every writing session but instead develop your ability to plot a story, to write engaging dialogue, to show rather than tell, and so on.

In a sense, you want to say to yourself, ���I���m just happy to write.���

Adapting this mindset will help motivate you. You are now writing simply because you have the freedom to write.

And as you look back at some of the writings from those sessions, you likely will be surprised: much of it is better than what you���ve previously written; much of it is publishable; and much of it will sell.

Professional Book Editor: Having your novel, short story or nonfiction manuscript proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. I can provide that second eye.



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Use Instagram to promote your books

Among the most popular forms of social media today is Instagram. People share on this site photos they���ve taken ��� of places they���ve traveled, of important events in their life, of crafts they���ve made, and so on. As an author, you can leverage Instagram to increase your book sales.

For nonfiction, this is easy enough. Simply make sure each blog entry you write has a photo with it. If you���ve written a book about kayaking, for example, your blog entries might be of rivers you���ve paddled; always be sure to include a picture with that blog entry. On Instagram, post that photo with a link back to your blog. Instagram���s photo caption can be the blog entry���s title. Sprinkle in photos of book covers with these posts.

Fiction books are a little more difficult but with some creativity still can be marketed at Instagram. For example, photos of people reading your book, pictures of an interior page from a book that includes an interesting photo, or pics of places that inspired settings in your novel all would work.

Be sure to include hashtags with your photo to maximize the chances that someone will stumble across it. Because people are visually oriented, they are willing to quick glance at your photo���and if it gains their interest, they���ll explore further. Hopefully, this will lead to more visitors at your blog and to additional book sales.

Instagram photos also can be tweeted, posted at Google+ or Facebook, even stuck on a board at Pinterest. This further increases the chances that a number of potential readers will discover you simply through a single posted picture.

Professional Book Editor: Having your novel, short story or nonfiction manuscript proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. I can provide that second eye.



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