Elizabeth Spann Craig's Blog, page 148

Writing Setting and Other Description—Getting Past the “Who Cares?” Aspect

By Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig





I dislike writing setting and
description, but I used to absolutely despise it.  I’ve got plenty of now-published manuscripts
in my Word archives with helpful editorial direction on them: “Elizabeth, could
you share with us what this car looks like? 
I can’t really picture it.”

Each time, of course, I added the
description in for my editor.  There are readers who
really enjoy description, I know.  I’ve
just never been one of them. 



There was also the side of me that mutters, “Who cares?” when asked about the car’s description.  Really, did it matter?  It wasn’t a clue to the mystery.  The character didn’t care much about cars.
Why include it?

But as I went on, I started making my
peace with it.  All right,
so the character doesn’t care about cars. 
Maybe that’s something I should be showing with my description.  Maybe the car shouldn’t be the latest
model.  Maybe the car desperately needs a
trip through an automatic carwash.  Or
maybe the car simply functions as a mobile billboard for the character’s
beliefs and causes—in the form of bumper stickers.  How could I take a humdrum assignment (adding
description) and make it something I could get interested in?

So 
that was one thing that helped—have the
description help show a bit about the character.

Another tip that I picked up along my
blog reading way was that verbs were much more
fun than adjectives when describing something.  A blog post by David Jacobsen on the Book
Talk blog, “Writing
Tip: Describing With Verbs”, does a nice job explaining the process. He
changed Kari was a beautiful toddler. She had
long, black, curly hair and shining, green eyes. to: As Kari toddled across the room, her black hair
curled and bounced around her shoulders, and her green eyes shone. 

Although his examples are dealing with
describing a character, you can use it with settings, too.  Something like this: The mountains rolled off as far as she could see, rising gently to the
sky until they faded into the horizon.  
The closer hills were draped with trees, like moss on stones.

Discover
how the character feels about the setting.  Literary agent and writer resource Donald Maass recommends
that we consider how our character feels about the setting, suggesting that we brainstorm emotions tied to particular events, incorporating those details
in our setting.  Again, this exercise
helps us, and our reader, understand the character a bit better…and helps make
our task a little more interesting.

Make the
setting enjoyable for you to write.  For one of my recently-written books, I chose
a setting with secret passageways, trapdoors, and a spooky attic.  Beats writing about lunch in a restaurant.  If there’s a place you especially enjoy,
think about writing a similar location into your book.

Have you got any tips for writing
description and describing setting?  Is
it something you enjoy as a reader or writer? 

Image: MorgueFile: calebunseth

5 Things About Book Publishing I Wish I Knew Then

  Guest Post by Deborah Sharp









First, I must
recognize Mystery Writing is Murder as the fantastic resource it is for me, and
for countless others. Much thanks to Elizabeth for her fantastic blog, and for
inviting me to guest post today.  




This month marks the
publication of the
fifth book in my Mace Bauer Mystery Series. It seems a good time to pause
to look back at what I didn't know when I started out.  Here are 5 Things About Book Publishing I Wish I Knew Then:
 




1. Writing your first book isn't the hard part.

The other stuff --
getting it published, promoting it, learning the ins and outs of marketing when
your entire experience in sales was peddling Girl Scout cookies in the fifth
grade --- that's the hard part. And if you're doing a series, like me, you'll also
be writing another book during the learning curve. Start learning about the
business side of being a writer before you get published. 




2. Your readers are not only drawn TO your setting,
they're drawn FROM your setting. 

Give this some
thought. Had I done so at the beginning, I might not have set my first book,
and hence my series, in a region of Florida that has more cattle than people.
Cows, in case you didn't know, do not buy books.  




3. Publishers
want what they want when they want it. 

When I began working
on my switch from journalism to fiction-writing in 2004, ebooks weren't even a
gleam in Amazon's eye. I went the traditional publishing route. If you do the
same, you'll probably wait months to hear from a publisher you've pitched. You
may not ever hear back at all. But if you do, and turn in the finished version
of your manuscript, months may pass without a word. Then, suddenly, they'll get
back to you with a cover design, or a request for changes, and it'll be, SNAP
TO IT!  As a former news reporter, I viewed that distant deadline as a
long, luxurious stretch of time. Now I know how time accelerates quickly toward
the end of the process. Understand that publishers do not like to be kept
waiting. 




4. When you
decide to don something "fun" or "quirky" because it's
something your character might wear, readers will expect to see you in it. ALL
THE TIME. 




''Where's Mama's
veil?'' 




I still hear that
question, three years after I dressed in hideously tacky wedding attire to
promote Book No. 3, ''Mama Gets Hitched.''  Not only did I get a permanent
neck crick from plopping five pounds of pearls, ribbons, and tulle on my head,
the wedding hat became a hard act to follow. Sure, a feather boa and diva
sunglasses worked for the movie theme of No. 4, ''Mama Sees Stars.'' But what
am I supposed to do for No. 5,  ''Mama
Gets Trashed?'' That book opens in the city dump. Must I dress in a Hefty
bag, and dip up punch from a trash can?  Be careful with costumes!




5. The quality
of your first book is key to the success of your series. Fortunately, I
had lots of time -- and a fantastic critique group -- to polish and improve my
first title.  I only realized later most series readers start at No. 1, no
matter which book the author may be promoting. That one establishes the characters
and the foundation for everything that follows. If No. 1 is a sloppy rush job,
readers won't pick up No. 2.  All aspiring writers hear this advice.
Listen, because it's absolutely true: Write the best book you can, right out of
the gate.




One lesson I'm
struggling with now is how real life can intrude on our writing lives. 

I write a funny
mystery series. When sad things happen, it's hard to be funny. Within the span
of a year, my mother's failing health and dementia forced me to place her in
assisted living. I had to sell the house where Mom -- my muse! -- lived for 65
years; the house where I was raised. Meanwhile, my husband's mother was dying
of cancer. We were at her bedside when she passed away. Nothing funny about any
of that.




I decided to take a
break from writing the series. My editor at Midnight Ink has been kind enough
to leave the door open should Mace, Mama, and the gang from Himmarshee, Fla., want to
come back. I've had some time lately to slow down, so I've been thinking of
things I wish I knew back when.  




How about you? What
lessons have you learned along the way that you wish you'd known at the start?






Florida native Deborah Sharp
is the author of the funny, southern-flavored Mace Bauer Mysteries, featuring Mace's wacky mama. She
lives with husband Kerry Sanders in Fort Lauderdale, where she spends her time chasing
the iguanas out of her hibiscus.

Primary Sources

By Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig







Last December I was at a Christmas
drop-in and was hanging out near the back of the room…my favorite haunt at
social events.  This spot is even better
if there is wine near the back of the room, which was the case for this party.

I’m sure I’m the despair of many a poor
hostess, but this one was doing a great job trying to engage me.  “Let me introduce you
to my friend," she said.  She brought me over to a
gentleman who was also standing in the back of a room, this one the
kitchen.  “Elizabeth is a mystery
writer,” she said with a smile.  Of
course I winced at being outed as a writer—you just never know how that’s going
to go. And the hostess continued, “Elizabeth, my friend is a botanist.”

I lit up. 
The party flew by and I wasn’t the first person to leave this
time—perhaps not even the fourth or fifth person. I’d immediately gasped as if
I’d met a rock star and said, “So you must know all about poisons!”   He did. 
The poor man.

It was a good thing that no one else
found the botanist as fascinating as I did. 
I completely monopolized him as I avidly picked his brain on North
Carolina poisons, emailing myself the information on my phone.  My husband gave up trying to be part of our
conversation as I recorded poison after poison in complete delight. It was my
most favorite party ever. And—I got lots of information on Destroying Angel, a
type of mushroom that I’m using in my next book.

This made me realize that, introverted as
I am and as fond of computer research as I am—sometimes nothing beats primary
sources.  The botanist loved talking about poisons and had ideas for
many different types.  I could
immediately learn if they’d work for my story by asking how long before they
took effect, if they had a bitter taste that would prevent the victim from
continuing to eat/drink the item, etc.

I’ve also used primary sources to fill in
bits of research that would take forever for me to research online.  Last year, I asked a successful barbeque
competitor how teams were set up for the Memphis in May barbeque competition
and what it took to win.  I’ve asked cops
police procedural questions, particularly how they relate to small towns.  And I’ve asked a former participant in beauty
contests exactly how one contestant could take revenge on another and ruin
their chances…and if these contests got that competitive (they can and do,
apparently).

Aside from the botanist, I’m usually
fairly organized when I contact a primary source.  If I’m calling, I immediately explain that
I’m a writer (especially when I ask police officers murder-related questions!),
ask if there’s a good time to call them back or if they’re currently available,
and always make sure I have my list of questions in front of me.  Email sometimes is a better way to
communicate with sources because then you’ve got it all in writing.  I’m not fond of the phone, but sometimes
that’s preferred by the person I’m interviewing.  And, as much as I dislike it, I probably do
get the information faster because I can ask follow-up questions right then
instead of having to email them back.

Something else I’ve found on these
occasions when I’ve talked with a primary source—I get ideas and information to
work with on other projects.  Plus, it gives me extra inspiration to talk
with someone who really knows the topic I’m asking them about and who’s excited
about it.

I credit my source in my acknowledgments
and send them a signed book when it releases.

Have you ever used primary sources for
researching a book? 

Image: Destroying Angel, Wikimedia Commons, Calvero

Twitterific

By Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig



Twitterific
links are fed into the Writer’s
Knowledge Base search engine (developed by
writer and software engineer Mike Fleming) which has over 23,000 free articles
on writing related topics. It's the search engine for writers.

Sign up for our free newsletter for bimonthly writing tips and interviews with top
contributors to the WKB or like us on Facebook. 

Mike Fleming and writing coach James Scott Bell are
offering an online, interactive, writing program to help make your next novel
great. It's called "Knockout Novel" and you can learn more about it
at Knockout Novel.com. 




A writer's
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When Not to Give an Interesting Character
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How to Write Description Through
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Top 7 Reasons You Should Give Your Book
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Screenwriting: 7 Ways Film Training Can
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10 Dead Simple Ways To Make Readers Love
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The Shy Writer's Cocktail Party Survival
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"750 Words" Helps You Meet
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Top Free & Paid Services to Promote
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The Millennial Method Of Publishing?
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Regulating Our Emotions To Be More
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Slate Gets It Wrong – The Real Reason
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3 steps to selling more of your
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Character Motivation and Desire Lines: http://dld.bz/cPbSX

40 Inspiring Workspaces Of The Famously
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ISBN Essentials: An FAQ for eBook
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Be Smart not Taken: Red Flags to Heed
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What if video games didn't exist... and
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Helpful Links for Writers

By Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig





I wanted to share some sites that I’ve
found really helpful lately.  I’m always
looking for ways to save time using apps and, so frequently, I seem to end up
with exactly the opposite—sites that take too long to set up, are unwieldy, or
that are total time sucks.

But these sites get special recognition
from me today because they’ve helped me out. I’m in favor of anything that
saves me even a few minutes of time. These sites are all free.



For
marketing: http://authormarketingclub.com/ 

I realize I might be the last kid on the
block to find out about this site. But I somehow stumbled into it recently and
it’s been very useful. Useful, as in “I’ve made more money in sales from
something that’s free.”  I’m not doing
the premium membership (yes, I’m cheap), but the free membership has had
several cool features that I’ve found helpful.



One is a link that links to a
ton of places to list your free book promo on Kindle.  I’ve never, ever used these. I hear about
Pixel of Ink and these types of sites and I nod that it’s a terrific idea. I
never use them.  This time, I pulled up
my book’s Amazon link, pulled up my website link, pasted my ISBN/ASIN onto a
Notepad doc (this is handy to have around since several sites wanted them), and
I started listing my free book on various sites.  I spent 15 minutes.  I noticed a significant increase in sales in
a short period of time, so I’m assuming these sites had something to do with
it.

There’s also a handy book widget creation
tool. I was pretty impressed.

For
organizing information: I’ve mentioned
before that I use the free version of Evernote
to organize information.  It’s sort of
like an online file cabinet with different notebooks inside. You can use it to
store pictures and text, or email files directly to the app. You can also sync
it to your phone if you want access to your files on the go (which I do.
Particularly at the grocery store when I can’t remember the ingredients for the
supper I’m planning.  All my favorite
recipes are on Evernote.

But somehow, I never got the hang of the Evernote web clipper.  I’d installed it once, then forgot it was
there and never used it.  Then I read
this Lifehacker article by Whitson Gordon recently on Evernote (I've Been Using Evernote All Wrong. Here's Why It's
Actually Amazing) and how to get better use out of it.  It mentioned the web clipper.  Let’s just say that I’m a fan.  If there’s a writing-related post that’s
helpful, for instance, I just click on the little web clipper icon that’s in my
toolbar and it clips the body of the article, skipping the header, footer,
margins, etc. I can even add notes to the clipping in the pop-up window.  It’s handy and easy.  I’ve got many notebooks in my
Evernote—everything from recipes to settings to writing tips.  What I like most is the way I can search
Evernote easily for exactly what I need.

Curation:
All right, I know this won’t apply to everyone. 
But I think that Prismatic is a very cool site.  If you’re not a content curator, you could
use Prismatic to discover new blogs to follow.

I discovered the site while reading an
article by Steve Young for Social Media Examiner: How
to Find Great Content to Share on Twitter. 


I’m actually in the position of having tons of content to share on Twitter.  I’m currently following over 2700 blogs in my
Feedly reader. 
But I’ve found that sometimes either I feel like the material I’m seeing
is a little stale—or maybe it’s just that I’m
a little stale after reading through so much content.  When SME recommended Prismatic, I decided to
give it a go.  Through them, I’ve
discovered new blogs to follow…blogs with different points of view and
different types of writing-related content. 
It’s made me a bit more interested in posting links, simply because I’m
looking at new material. This can be a
time suck because there are so many cool blogs to discover…you might want to
set yourself a timer if you head over there.

Time
Management: And one last word…on the subject of timers,
actually.  I’ve used Online
Stopwatch for years (free, of
course), but recently saw an article on Lifehacker (yes, Lifehacker once again)
by Thorin Klosowski: Use Google as a Timer with a Simple
Search Command.  Yes, that’s all it takes.  Type in “set timer for 30 minutes”—or however
many minutes—and you’ve got an instant timer. 
Obviously handy for a phone, too.

That’s all for me today.  Have you got any cool sites or apps to share?

Thoughts on Teaser Chapters

By Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig





I had a deadline Sunday that I met just
in the nick of time. :)  It was a
deadline for a teaser chapter—the first chapter in my current WIP that will go
into the back of the December Penguin release.

I realized that I treat teaser chapters
differently, depending on the situation. 
I actually sweated a bit over this one, which was probably why I ran so
close to deadline.  That’s because my
editor asked for this chapter (with a September 1 deadline) before I actually started writing the book or
even the outline.  That means that I
wrote the chapter with an eye for marketing.

I was particularly conscious of the
opening hook and the chapter ending. Ordinarily…I really don’t think too much
about them.  I always open with dialogue,
even though I keep reading that this is a “bad thing.” It’s worked out all
right for me.

It's certainly easier on me when I get the request for a teaser chapter and I can lift the chapter out of an
already-completed first draft.

My publisher tells me that they want the
first chapter “fairly firm”—in other words, they don’t want any major
changes.  Minor word changes would be all
right.  Changing the characters’
names—not so great.

My editor will always say that if I don’t
have a solid first chapter for the teaser that they’ll use the first chapter
for the first book in the series.  My gut
tells me that’s a less-successful marketing technique so I always make sure
that I’ve got the first chapter for the new book ready (even if I’ve not
written the rest of it).

On the other hand—it occurred to me that
cliffhangers in trad-published teasers aren’t necessarily a great thing. Yes, it can pique
reader interest in the next book.  But,
if the next book isn’t being released for nearly a year (as in this case), then
it might prompt some reader frustration, too.

But if you’re self-publishing, this might be exactly the effect you’re looking
for.  Maybe you’ve even got the next
release in your series ready to go.  Perhaps these are even backlist books. In
that case, a cliffhanger of a teaser chapter would be smart marketing. 

And then…part of me wonders if teaser
chapters make a huge difference to readers at all. For me, I’m already committed to
reading the next book in a series, if I’ve enjoyed the series so far.  What I have
done, as a reader, is buy someone else’s
book when a book has been cross-promoted by a publisher with a teaser
chapter.  This makes me think the
self-publishing practice of trading teasers with other authors is a
smart move.

As a writer, do you use teaser
chapters?  As a reader, do they have an
impact on your buying habits?

Help With Dialogue Tags

Guest Post by Jack Smith






Dialogue
Tags

What about “he said”/”she said”—do you
need them?  Or perhaps the character’s
name instead of the pronoun?  How much of
either is needed?  How much is too
much?  Like everything else in creative
writing, no rules here.  Only what
works.  And you can think of this matter
in at least two ways: clarity and style—or both.

Take a look at this passage from Raymond
Carver’s “What’s in Alaska?”  Do we need
the dialogue tags?

“I don’t know.  Something Mary said,” Helen said.

“What did I say?” Mary
said.

“I can’t remember,”
Helen said.

“We have to go,” Jack
said.

“So long,” Carl
said.  “Take it easy.”




We could probably use some help here,
clarity-wise, since we’ve got four characters speaking, but notice too that
Carver creates an interesting cadence by the repetition of “said.”  Really! 
Nice, isn’t it?  What if he went
by some silly hard-and-fast rule about cutting down your use of “said.”  We would miss the lyrical quality of his
prose. Wouldn’t we?

Is clarity a matter in this passage from
Carver’s “The Compartment”?

They love you, I said.

No, they don’t, he
said.

I said, Someday,
they’ll understand things.

Maybe Wes, said.  But it won’t matter then.

You don’t know, I
said.

I know a few things,
Wes said, and he looked at me.

Clarity is much less an issue here.  But again—notice how the repetitive use of
“said” builds an interesting cadence. The texture of the prose draws us in—or
at least it draws me in. 

Notice now this passage from Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises.  No dialogue tags:

“He must drink a lot
of wine.”

“Or wear purple
undershirts.”

“Let’s ask him.”

“No.  He’s too tired.”

There’s plenty of this bare-bones
dialogue in this novel.  And by now, this
stripped-down dialogue is pretty familiar to many readers—readers, for
instance, of Cormac McCarthy.  It creates
an impact.  We hear conversation spoken,
and that’s it—like an audio tape.

 But there’s a middle road—a “he said,” a “she
said,” or “Norm said,” or “Mary said,” now and then—and then an action line
that establishes who’s talking.  For
instance, also from The Sun Also Rises:

“Poor old
darling.”  She stroked my head.

You could avoid the tags by action lines
like this.  We know who’s talking.

So what are your options?

1. 
Ramp up the dialogue tags.

2. Eliminate them altogether and go with
the bare-bones back and forth exchange.

3. Insert action lines now and then to
find ways to avoid tags.

But don’t get the idea that it’s best to
go for the Aristotelian Mean and take a middle path.  Think clarity, but also think style.

What sound do you want to create?  What tone? 





Jack Smith

Write and Revise for Publication
, Writer’s Digest, 2013, and Hog to Hog, winner of the George
Garrett Fiction Prize, Texas Review Press, 2008

Twitterific

by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig









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A Productivity Note

By Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig





This post will be short and sweet
because…I’ve gotten a little behind with everything this week.  :) And the odd thing is that this is back to
school week, so you’d think I’d be getting tons
of stuff done.

But no. 
And yesterday, I had to sit down and assess where I was going wrong. Why
was I scrambling to finish up writing-related tasks like promo?  Why was supper a last-minute effort? Why did
I keep forgetting milk at the store? 
What on earth was different?

Well, what was different was that the
kids were back in school.  But it’s not
quite the same as last year.

Last year…all the years, actually…I’ve
driven my son’s carpool to school and back. 
I sat in the carpool line and typed half of my word goal each day in
that line.  And now—my son is driving
himself to school. 

I’m still driving my daughter’s carpool,
but not every afternoon.  That school
lets out later than my son’s school, too. 


So my schedule changed and that
messed me up.

Another place where I went wrong—in the
afternoons, I felt so lost by not heading off to the high school to sit in the
carpool line that each day this week I asked myself, “What should I be doing
right now?”

And the answer each time was: “I have no
idea.  Maybe I should check my email.”

Wrong! 
Checking email is never the right
answer to that question.  :)  Email is a tremendous time-suck for me.

What I did instead yesterday was to make
a list of what I needed to do.  I’d made
a list in the morning, but I’d checked those things off.  What I need now, apparently, is a separate
afternoon list.  So I wrote it up.  The most pressing things were to proofread a
teaser chapter that I was on deadline for, find and schedule links for Twitter,
and then pull that laundry out of the dryer before the stuff started wrinkling
(there’s not a lot of ironing going on in my house).  Checking email was not on this list.

So, for me anyway, even small
fluctuations in a schedule have an impact. If I lose productivity, then I need
to figure out where I’m going wrong. 

And lists…one list may not be enough to
carry me through a whole day.  Because
when I finish the stuff on my morning list—heck, I might just pull up my emails
and lose an hour or more.

Do you ever have to reassess when to fit
your writing in?  And do you rely on
lists as much as I do?

Writing and Taxes

by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig

The business side of writing is my least
favorite part.  I struggle to keep
up.  And there’s sort of a residual guilt
that I’m not doing all I can do to keep my accounts organized.  But I’m trying.

New as of 2013 is an accountant.  I tried…I did try…to do my taxes last
February. I’ve done my own taxes for the last ten years.  This time, however, they boggled my mind
about halfway through and I also felt a rising panic that I was doing something
wrong.  I found a CPA right away.

One of the problems is that my
income—never very much, but always nice to have and increasingly relied upon—comes from many
different sources.  I’ve now got income
coming from two traditional publishers, Amazon, Smashwords, Nook, ACX, and
CreateSpace.  My accountant recently
asked me financial planning questions.  I ended up giving
several apologetic shrugs.  I’m sure this
makes her want to drink heavily.

“So you’re getting a check this
fall?  But you don’t know what that check
will be for?”  She smiles patiently at
me.

“No idea. 
It’s for royalties from Penguin.”

“For sales.  But you don’t know your sales.”

“That’s right.  It’s just sort of a surprise.”  I’m blushing now.  It makes it look as if I’m not paying
attention. But these are numbers I’m not privy to—primarily bookstore
numbers. This is, admittedly, one of the things that drives writers a little nuts when it comes to traditional publishing.  I add, “But I also have
self-published books and I’m paid 60 days in arrears for those.  I should be able to give you an idea of the
money coming in 60 days from now for my self-pubbed books, if that helps.” Financial planning, when you're a writer, means a lot of guesswork and piecing together.

I did get some tips from the CPA that
I’ve been fairly good about following (and then some that are good tips that I
haven’t gotten around to yet).

Open a
business checking account.  If you
can, find a free one—probably with a small bank or a credit union.  Have your publishing income direct deposited
into that account.  Write checks for
publishing-related expenses from that account, too—it just helps to keep
everything straight.

Keep a
small notebook in your car to record gas expenses for writing-related trips.
This is not only for promo…this could be gas spent driving to the post office
to mail off giveaway prizes to readers or gas used driving to the bank to
deposit a random check.

For US writers (since I have no idea how
this applies to international writers)—if you know you’ll likely be paying a
fair amount of taxes to the federal government in April (because this stuff
isn’t taken out of our checks, y’all), we should pay
the government estimated, taxes along the way.  To avoid penalties, for sure, but also to
keep the tax bill from putting us in total shock when we get it in April. 

Contributing
to a 401K (self-employed people can be eligible) or an Individual Retirement Account can help to reduce the
amount of taxes we pay.

Obviously, the necessity of paying taxes
means that we shouldn’t spend all of the money
from the checks that come in. As difficult as this is. :)

If your income is higher during the year
than you’d previously estimated, it might be a good idea to check back in with your accountant and make some
plans. 

Keep
receipts.  Keep your office supply
receipts, your receipts for computer-related purchases, your gas receipts, your
conference receipts.  Remember to keep
receipts of payments for services, too—your agent’s commissions, your cover
designer’s bill, your formatter’s invoice, etc.

And the disclaimer…clearly, I’m not a tax adviser (ha!) If you need tax advice…I do recommend you find a
professional.  It will keep you from
staying up at night worrying about this stuff.

Until you find your professional, here
are some interesting articles on taxes and writing income to get a more
thorough overview.

Taxes 101 for Authors—by Susan
Spann

10
ways to cut costs from your freelance writing business—by Michelle V.
Rafter




Taxes
and Record Keeping for Writers—by Starla Criser




How do you keep track of your writing
income? Got any other tips?  

Image: MorgueFile: ModernCog