Robin Burrows's Blog, page 6

Happy National Poetry Month

If you didn’t know, April is National Poetry Month in the US. Many organizations are celebrating this month by sharing or promoting poetry in their communities.

One of the most well-known events in the online poetry world is the annual Writer’s Digest April Poem-A-Day Challenge on the Poetic Asides Blog. Robert Lee Brewer provides a new poetry prompt each day in April. There is also a contest at the end where Robert picks his favorite poems. It’s another great excuse to write poetry this month.

I, however, have other projects I am working on this month. But here is a poems I wrote a while back. Happy Poeming!

Road of Life

By Robin A. Burrows

on a three-seater bus

hand in hand in hand

faces interchange

left and right

all loved

deeds done

never forgotten

goodbye and hello

faces change

on the road of life

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Social Media Tutorials 04: How to Use Lists in Twitter

If you follow more than 50 people on Twitter, the list feature is a great tool for you. It works a little like circles in Google Plus, except the total number of lists you can make is limited.

Lists are wonderful because they allow you to filter through the tweets and see only what you want to see. For example, if you have one Twitter account for both your personal and professional self, you can set up a list to just show you tweets by your real life friends and a separate list for tweets from your clients.

For lists you create, you can choose whether they are public lists that anyone can see and follow, or if they are private lists that only you can see.

In addition, you can also follow other people’s lists.For example, if your publishing company has 8 reps, one person could create a list of those 8 people, and you could follow their list instead of making your own.

Go to a person’s profile on Twitter and click on lists to see all of the public lists they created and follow. You can follow any of the lists you see because you will not be able to see someone’s private lists.

There are some really creative uses for lists. One person created accounts for Star Wars characters and then added all of the characters to a list and the characters tweeted out the Star Wars story. By following the list (or visiting the list page) you could read all of the posts by the characters all in one place without having to friend them all!

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Writing News – Article in Chicken Soup for the Soul

What seems like eons ago, I submitted a piece to Chicken Soup for the Soul.

Over a year later, I had completely forgotten about it. Then I got an email telling me my manuscript was in the final round.

When I saw my manuscript again, it was awful. Either my writing improved a lot over the past year or my distance from the piece let me see in much clearer than any other piece of my writing. I’d actually forgotten I’d written it.

A couple of edits later, my article passed the final round of cuts. It will appear in the Chicken Soup for the Soul: Inspiration for Writers book which will be released May 21, 2013.

It’s only a page and a half article among a hundred other pieces. But check it out if it’s something that interests you.

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Marketing 101 – Turning Books into Movies

Recently, I read the first book in a series so I could go watch the movie. It’s more interesting to read the book before you watch the movie. Even if the movie is different, it spoils the book.

So I read said book and looked online for movie show times. It was no longer showing…?! How was that possible? The movie had premiered only a few weeks earlier. Who only shows a movie for 3 weeks?

I dug around in the reviews and found out why. Apparently the adaptation was so different from the book that it offended most of the readers. And I’m not talking about a few nit-picky difference. I’m talking about a long list of differences, and some of them were major changes. So that’s why the movie is no longer showing.

I can understand how difficult it is to compress a whole novel into a movie. I can accept omissions and minor changes for the sake of compression and a good movie. I can even accept a few moderate changes if the changes appear to be close to what the author might have changed if they revised again.

But completely changing important things and people in the story is unacceptable in most cases. The author had a story to tell and if you change it so much, it is no longer the author’s story.

In Marketing 101 you learn about target audiences for your products – whatever those might be. Movies based off of books have a built-in audience, especially since a book has to be popular before it is considered for a movie. If you present the true essence of the book, those fans will likely come back for every sequel. A few little things like Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, and Twilight come to mind. Even if the book was bad, if the fans like it, they will go to the movie as long as you make an effort to be true to the book.

So why in the world would a screenwriter write a script for a movie that changes so much that it would offend your built-in audience? I just don’t understand.

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Social Media Tutorials 03 – What are these hashtag things on Twitter?

If you use Twitter, you’ve seen them – the number signs before words and series of words. If you don’t use Twitter yet, you’ve probably seen them on other platforms and wondered what the heck they were.

Well, here’s the secret to hashtags. On Twitter they are the key to conversations. If you want to talk about writing with other writers, you have two choices. You can friend/follow writers with similar interests. But how do you find other people like you? Hashtags are a good way to find and connect with people with similar interests.

Hashtags are also a great way to follow topics that interest you. For example, if you do a search for writing, you will find all tweets mentioning the word writing in all contexts. Including a college kid complaining about the essay they are writing for class. But if you search for #writing. The search will only bring up tweets which people marked as conversations about writing (using the hashtag).

Many groups create special hashtags for their group or event. You can tweet with other people at a conference (about the conference) by using the conference hashtag. It’s a great way to stay up-to-date on a conversation with people who are not followers.

Hashtags are also used for Twitter memes. You will recognize these by the typically long length of the hashtags and the humorous nature.

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Congratulations poem to my brother and his new wife

As some of you know my brother became a married man last Friday. In honor of that, here is a quick poem for him and his new wife!

From Paradise to Forever

To John and Jamie – March 8, 2013

By Robin A. Burrows

Hand in hand

They walk the sand

A soft breeze

A salty splash

Beautiful days

Blazing memories

Wash away the past

And start

A new journey

On gentler paths

From paradise

To forever.

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Social Media Tutorials 02: Messaging in Twitter

In this installment of social media tutorials I’d like to talk about messaging in Twitter.

Tweets

A basic message it called a tweet. It can be 140 characters long – that’s counting each letter, space, number, punctuation mark, and any other individual characters you use in your message.

However, you want to make your tweet shorter than 140 characters if you want people to retweet your post. I will explain why in a minute.

Retweets

But what is a retweet? A retweet is when someone else shares your post or you share someone else’s post. Retweets usually begin with RT@yourusernamegoeshere. The RT is short for retweet and lets everyone know that you are sharing someone else’s tweet. The username of the original poster is automatically included in the retweet – because it’s polite to credit the source of your post. I will talk about how to retweet after I discuss your other basic messaging options with twitter.

Crediting/Tagging People in Tweets

When you retweet a post, the username is automatically included in the post. But what if you type a new post and want to credit someone, or tag friends so they will be notified of the post?

The @ symbol is always included directly in front of a user name in a tweet because that adds a link to that person’s profile. To tag someone in a post type the @ symbol and include the username right after the @ sign. The username is all one word without spaces. It can be different from a person’s display name, so be sure to use the person’s one-word name after the @ symbol if you want to tag them.

When you tag someone in a post, they are notified of the tag. Also, when people click on the tag in your post, it will take them to the profile of the person you tagged. This is especially useful when crediting someone.

Tags are included in the 140 character limit, so you can’t tag everyone. It’s best to only tag people when you retweet or want them to be copied on a conversation.

Replies

Replying to a tweet is a lot like tagging someone. You can click the reply button on Twitter, and the @username will automatically appear at the beginning of a new tweet. This shows you are directing the tweet to that person. They will receive a notification that you mentioned them in a tweet. Replies link to the person’s profile just like tags, but replies always show the @username at the beginning of the tweet, and it you are copying or tagging someone on a tweet, those tags appear at the end of tweets. The reason for this is many aggregate programs can filter out @replies to uncluttered a feed, but they do this by filtering out every tweet the begins with @. So to summarize: reply @s are at the beginning of a tweet and tagging @s are at the end.

Direct Messages

Tweets are public and anyone can see them (unless you set your account to private – which I do not recommend because it limits some of the best marketing features of twitter). However if you need to send someone a private message or don’t want to clutter your page with lots of @replies, then you can send a direct message. These messages still are limited to 140 characters, but they are sent to the user’s inbox. Only you and the user sees direct messages.

Message Length for Easy Retweeting

Remember earlier I said that you don’t want to take up the full 140 characters for a tweet? Here’s why. If you are a writer who wants to build a following on twitter, you want people to retweet your posts. It makes good business sense. The more people see your tweets, the better the chance you connect with your target audience.

However if your posts are the full 140 characters when someone tries to retweet your post, they will need to eliminate some characters before they can retweet it. Wait? Why would they have trouble retweeting a post that was 140 characters? Because when you retweet, the original username is added to the beginning of the tweet.

For example, my username is robinaburrows, so when someone retweets my post RT @robinaburrows is added to the beginning of the tweet. That is 18 extra characters counting the spaces you want between the username and the tweet. So the longest tweet I can post is 122 characters if I want people to be able to retweet easily.

If your username is shorter you might need to reserve fewer characters for the retweet. But if your post is even one character over 140 when the RT @username is added, the person retweeting will have to edit your post before they can retweet. In many cases people would rather cancel retweeting than try to shorten your post to fit. So always make sure to leave enough empty space for retweets when you tweet.

Come back in 2 weeks for the next installment of my social media tutorial series – the ever elusive hashtags!

Writing Conferences and Contests in and Around Arkansas in 2013

I hope your writing year is off to a good start. If you haven’t already planned out your conferences for the year, here is a list of writing conferences and contests in and around Arkansas. If you live somewhere else in the US, you can find a list of conferences on the Shaw Guides website.

March 9, 2013 – Northwest Arkansas Writers Free Workshop in Fayetteville, AR. This writing workshop is free to attend.

March 15, 2013 – Deadline to enter the NFSPS (National Federation of State Poetry Societies) Annual Poetry Contests.

April 18-21, 2013 – Arkansas Literary Festival in Little Rock, AR. Technically this isn’t a writing conference, but sometimes there are writing workshops with authors. It can be a fun experience and it is all about literacy!

April 25, 2013 – Deadline to enter contests with the Arkansas Writers Conference.

May 2-4, 2013 – The Oklahoma Writers Federation Inc (OWFI) Conference in Oklahoma City, OK. Fantasy author, Patrick Rothfuss, is the keynote speaker. I really wish I could attend this conference this year. The contest deadline has already passed, but you can still register for the conference. However, attendance is limited, so don’t wait until the last minute to register if you want to attend this one.

May 18, 2013 – Poets Roundtable of Arkansas Spring Luncheon. This year it will be held in El Dorado, but the location rotates each year. Check out the February newsletter on the website for details.

May 18, 2013 – Ozarks Writers League (OWL) Spring Conference in Branson, MO.

May 31 & June 1. 2013 - The Arkansas Writers Conference in Little Rock, AR.

June 7-8, 2013 - The Arkansas SCBWI (society of Children’s Book Writer and Illustrator) Conference in North Little Rock, AR.

August 17, 2013 – Ozarks Writers League (OWL) Summer Conference in Branson, MO.

August 2013 – The deadline for the Poets Roundtable of Arkansas annual Poetry Day contests is usually in August or September.

August 2013 – The entry deadline to enter the contests for the Ozark Creative Writers Conference hasn’t been posted yet, but it is usually in August.

August 31, 2013 – The White County Creative Writers’ Conference in Searcy, AR is held the each the Saturday before Labor Day each year. Check the website closer to the conference date for contests and contest deadlines.

September 1, 2013 – Deadline to enter the contests for the Ozarks Writers League (OWL) Fall Conference in Branson, MO.

October 10-12, 2013 – Ozark Creative Writers (OCW) Conference in Eureka Springs, AR.

October 2013 – Each year the Poets Roundtable of Arkansas holds their annual Poetry Day conference in October. The date and location may vary. For 2013 it will be held in Hot Springs, AR. It is usually on a Saturday in October. Check the website closer to October for the actual conference date. Their contest deadlines are usually in August or September.

October 18-20, 2013 – Arkansas SCBWI writing retreat in Fort Smith, AR.

November 16, 2013 – Ozarks Writers League (OWL) Fall Conference in Branson, MO. They will announce the awards from their annual contests at this conference.

This is just a small sampling of conferences in my tri-state area. If you would like to find writing conferences in another area, try searching Shaw Guides or Google for conferences near you.

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Social Media Tutorials 01: How to setup a Twitter account

Most people are familiar with FaceBook, so I thought I would start my tutorials with Twitter because it is a bigger mystery.

What is Twitter and why should I care?

Twitter is a micro-blogging platform. Users can share “tweets” that are up to 140 characters.

When Twitter first came out, everyone thought it was a fad, but Twitter is here to stay. Brands and professionals (like artists and writers) often have Twitter accounts to connect with their fans. Unlike FaceBook, Twitter allows you to have conversations with anyone (including non-friends) about any topic using hashtags. (We will discuss hashtags in a future installment.) It is acceptable to post more often on Twitter because posts are short.

How do I setup a Twitter account?

Go to http://www.twitter.com, and enter your name, email, and a password to start your account. You will be taken to a screen to choose your username and can change the info you just entered. The next page will show you a sample tweet. Click the Next button to be taken to a screen to add followers. They will provide you with a list of celebrities and popular accounts. You can also use the search button to search for specific people. You need to follow 5 accounts to continue. Don’t worry, you can always un-follow these people later. On the next page, select a category and follow 5 more accounts. On the next screen you can search for people to follow based on your email contacts. If you wish to skip a step, you can click on the “Skip” link at the bottom of the boxes.

On the next page you can upload a profile photo and write your bio. I would suggest cropping your photo to a square before uploading it to prevent a squished or irregularly cropped image. The image can be up 700 kb or less. Your bio can be up to 160 characters. Most bios are short and quirky. You want to tell readers what they need to know about you while also expressing something about your personality.

Then you have a Twitter account!

How do I follow and un-follow people?

To follow more people, click on “Discover” and select “Find Friends” or you can search for specific account names in the search bar at the top of the page. Look for the Follow button on the search or profile page to follow an account.

To un-follow someone, go to your home page. Below your profile name, there will be a box showing the number of following and followers. Click on the following number to see who you follow. Click on the following button beside each account you want to un-follow.

How do I tweet?

From the home page, just start typing in “compose new tweet” box beneath your profile picture. You can also download the Twitter app on most mobile devices and you can tweet from there.

Other basic Twitter tips:

You will need to verify your email address. To do that, open your email and click on the link in the email from Twitter to show you are actually the person who setup the account.
Start tweeting, and try to be consistent in what you tweet based on the kind of followers you want to attract.
Twitter is all about the relationships so find people to follow and start tweeting with them. Have conversations. Get to know them. (I will discuss how to reply and send direct messages in a future update.)

Please note that social media platforms change all the time, so the steps may be slightly different if it has been a while since I wrote this blog. Come back in two weeks for more Twitter basics!

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2013 Arkansas Poetry Contests for High School Students (Grades 6-12)

I am a member of the Poets Roundtable of Arkansas, and each spring we host several student poetry contests. They are free to enter and open to high school students in Arkansas. One of them is open to high school students anywhere in the US. There have not been many entries this year, so please share this with any high school poets that you may know. Here is the 2013 Contest Brochure. See it for the full contest rules for each contest. A summary of contests and deadlines is included below:

The Manningham Student Poetry Trust Awards

Deadline March 1, 2013. Any subject, any form, 50 line limit. Open to Arkansas students, grades 6-12.

National Federation of State Poetry Societies Student Award

Deadline March 15, 2013. Any subject, any form, 32 line limit. Open to students grades 9-12 anywhere in the US.

Central Arkansas Library Student Poetry Contest

Deadline February 22, 2013. Any form, 25 line limit. Subject: write about one of the four seasons of the year. Only open to Arkansas students, grades 6-12.

Poets Roundtable of Arkansas Sybil Nash Abrams Memorial Student Contest

Deadline March 1, 2013. Any subject, any form, 24 line limit. Open to Arkansas students, grades 6-12.

Please see the 2013 Contest Brochure for complete contest guidelines and submission addresses. Please share this blog or the Contest Brochure with anyone who might be interested in the contests, because the deadlines are quickly approaching.

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