Buffy Greentree's Blog, page 5
October 2, 2013
Giveaway Winners and A Mother's Story
The Giveaway Winners! Big thanks to everyone that drop by and read Philip's guest post on writing radio plays. Though, I was surprised to see how many people actually left a comment to win the prize compared to those who dropped by. I know that hundreds of people read the post (got to love stats), yet only a few entered in to win. (Any deep sociological cues I'm not picking up on, feel free to let me know in the comments!)
Well, I'm sorry for all the rest because everyone that entered has won a copy! So Lisa, Ben and Anonymous (yeah, going to have to do a bit of detective work on that one... please let me know who you are if you are reading this!) you will have a copy coming to you soon!
A Mother's Story:
In other news, the true story I was developing into a print on demand novella for my aunt is now available through Amazon/Createspace. 'A Mother's Story' details the bullying and emotional abuse suffered by the six Dobbs children as well as their parents at the hands of Figtree Anglican church, New South Wales. It is the events as experienced and told by Machele Dobbs, their mother. It is an incredible tale of what happens when a seemingly normal church actually has a cult like control over its parishioners. They wrongly accused Dr. Scott Dobbs of being a child abuser, and then persecuted him and his entire family in a fashion that was much worse than anything Dr. Dobbs was ever supposed to have done.
The hard copy is only $5, to cover the cost of printing, because we just want to get the story out there. Figtree Anglican has tried to pretend it did nothing wrong, and is even refusing the Archbishop's directive to make a public declaration that they wrongly accused Dr. Scott Dobbs. But if that is not enough, the Sydney Diocese is also refusing to acknowledge that it inflicted any pain or suffering on the rest of the Dobbs family. So the only recourse we have is to make the situation known.
As some of you might know, when I was a teenager my family went through a very similar case where my father, an Anglican minister, was victimised by the hierarchy. I know exactly how much damage those who pose as Christians can cause, and want to defend the name of Christ by showing these people for what they are - manipulators and power hungry individuals that have nothing to do with the will of God.
So if you are interested, take a look at A Mother's Story on Amazon. (The electronic version will be available later this week... hopefully. I've had a cold and been feeling sorry for myself (aka, not doing work).) I am more than happy to give away review copies, just leave a comment or email me at b.greentr@gmail.com
Other than that, I plan to kill my brother. I'm sorry, but it just needs to be done.
After working on the electronic version of his book, he decides he wants me to create the print on demand version. I tell him, repeatedly, that I want him to read through what I've done with the text (as I had to make a great number of corrections and try to smooth some parts over) before I do it all, because once it's in print, it can't be changed. However, he says he's totally happy with whatever I do, and it doesn't matter, just get it done. Once again, before submitting the file I ask him to check it, but he says he doesn't need to. I tell him that I want to take this book to sell at the conference I'm attending, so this is his last chance to check it if we want to do that. He still says go ahead with it.So I order the proofs from createspace, just to check, before planning on making the order for a number of books. Once the proofs arrive, my brother tells me he is now going to read through it with a highlighter for all the bits he wants to change, and he no longer wants this cover!
See, I just have to kill him!
So, the print on demand version of Tom Grafton Vs. The Environmentalists is not going to be ready for a while yet. And, if I can't restrain myself, the rest of the world may never read the last two books in the trilogy, because the author will be dead.
I think I'll be able to still write while in prison, so not that great a loss.
I just keep reminding myself that I can charge him for all the extra time it takes when he keeps changing his mind.
Well, I'm sorry for all the rest because everyone that entered has won a copy! So Lisa, Ben and Anonymous (yeah, going to have to do a bit of detective work on that one... please let me know who you are if you are reading this!) you will have a copy coming to you soon!
A Mother's Story:
In other news, the true story I was developing into a print on demand novella for my aunt is now available through Amazon/Createspace. 'A Mother's Story' details the bullying and emotional abuse suffered by the six Dobbs children as well as their parents at the hands of Figtree Anglican church, New South Wales. It is the events as experienced and told by Machele Dobbs, their mother. It is an incredible tale of what happens when a seemingly normal church actually has a cult like control over its parishioners. They wrongly accused Dr. Scott Dobbs of being a child abuser, and then persecuted him and his entire family in a fashion that was much worse than anything Dr. Dobbs was ever supposed to have done.
The hard copy is only $5, to cover the cost of printing, because we just want to get the story out there. Figtree Anglican has tried to pretend it did nothing wrong, and is even refusing the Archbishop's directive to make a public declaration that they wrongly accused Dr. Scott Dobbs. But if that is not enough, the Sydney Diocese is also refusing to acknowledge that it inflicted any pain or suffering on the rest of the Dobbs family. So the only recourse we have is to make the situation known.
As some of you might know, when I was a teenager my family went through a very similar case where my father, an Anglican minister, was victimised by the hierarchy. I know exactly how much damage those who pose as Christians can cause, and want to defend the name of Christ by showing these people for what they are - manipulators and power hungry individuals that have nothing to do with the will of God.
So if you are interested, take a look at A Mother's Story on Amazon. (The electronic version will be available later this week... hopefully. I've had a cold and been feeling sorry for myself (aka, not doing work).) I am more than happy to give away review copies, just leave a comment or email me at b.greentr@gmail.com
Other than that, I plan to kill my brother. I'm sorry, but it just needs to be done.
After working on the electronic version of his book, he decides he wants me to create the print on demand version. I tell him, repeatedly, that I want him to read through what I've done with the text (as I had to make a great number of corrections and try to smooth some parts over) before I do it all, because once it's in print, it can't be changed. However, he says he's totally happy with whatever I do, and it doesn't matter, just get it done. Once again, before submitting the file I ask him to check it, but he says he doesn't need to. I tell him that I want to take this book to sell at the conference I'm attending, so this is his last chance to check it if we want to do that. He still says go ahead with it.So I order the proofs from createspace, just to check, before planning on making the order for a number of books. Once the proofs arrive, my brother tells me he is now going to read through it with a highlighter for all the bits he wants to change, and he no longer wants this cover!
See, I just have to kill him!
So, the print on demand version of Tom Grafton Vs. The Environmentalists is not going to be ready for a while yet. And, if I can't restrain myself, the rest of the world may never read the last two books in the trilogy, because the author will be dead.
I think I'll be able to still write while in prison, so not that great a loss.
I just keep reminding myself that I can charge him for all the extra time it takes when he keeps changing his mind.
September 23, 2013
Guest Post: Philip Craig Robotham on Writing Audio-Dramas (With Giveaway)
Hello all! Well, it will be a week tomorrow since I packed up everything, moved all but a suitcase (and a bit)'s worth into storage, and started my freelance life. Still trying to sort everything out but am carrying on. So thank you all for your patience and support as I upend my life... again.
Today, to fill in my very conspicuous gap, I have the wonderful Philip Craig Robotham doing a guest interview.
Philip has started up his own company, weirdworldstudios.com, producing audio drama scripts in the style of old time radio plays packaged as a fun dinner party idea. While still holding down his day job, Philip has created radio plays for three serials; Pulp Adventure, Gaslamp Mystery and Fantasy Noir. Today we talk about why radio plays, how he writes, and the challenges associated with starting a writing career.
What inspires you to write?
For me writing is enormous fun. I do it because I love the thrill of creating and allowing my imagination to run wild. I'm also an old-time radio fan. I enjoy everything from adventures like "Gunsmoke", "the Green Hornet", "the Saint", and "Yours Truly Johnny Dollar", through comedies such as "the Goon Show" and "Fibber McGee and Molly", through science fiction like "X Minus 1" and "ProjectXx", through to horror and suspense like "the Inner Sanctum".
It's typical of me that the genre of writing that gets me excited the most is one which died out more than forty years ago. All the same, it's what I love and seems to be having something of a resurgence lately via the internet. There have been some great examples of audio drama made available recently from podcasters online. These include the fabulous "Adventures of the Red Panda", the haunting and creepy "Wormwood", the extremely professional "Leviathan Chronicles", and far too many others to list.
I'm not a particularly florid writer. I like plain speech and simple exposition. I'm also not overly fond of having to write lengthy descriptions of people and places. As a result radio writing seems to have been made for me.
The first of the Pulp Adventure SeriesHow does writing an audio drama differ from other genres?
Writing for the ear is very different to any other kind of writing that I have ever done. For one thing everything is exposition. In real life no-one ever says "look out Claire, he's holding a gun!", but in an audio drama it's essential to spell out what is happening for the listener. It's also very hard to write an audio drama with a lone character in it. If you do then you'll find yourself forced to have the character talking to him or herself constantly. The old Sam Spade voice-over was probably invented for radio shows relying on a single main character:"I walked the last 18 steps to the battered old front door. The lock had been jimmied and swung creaking on its hinges in the evening breeze."
There’s great atmosphere in these monologues but, personally, I like my characters to have company and it lets me indulge my taste for banter:"What are we doing here, boss?" "Old man Cranston invited us to come visit him up at the house." "Yeah? Battered looking old place isn't it? Give me a second and I'll try the door... Hey, the lock's broken! This door's been jimmied open." "What gave it away, genius? The fact that it was swinging back and forth on its hinges or the crowbar lying in the dirt beside it?" I also like conflict and a bit of "sass". It’s harder to have that with a lone character.
One thing you really develop when writing an audio script is your ability to do dialog and characterisation (especially dialog). That's simply because dialog is all you have to work with most of the time. You don't have to spend a lot of time labouring over descriptions of people and places when you write for radio - the listener will supply all the detail with their own imaginations - but you do have to manage dialog. In fact a judicious lack of physical description engages the listener’s imagination more effectively and helps them to identify themselves more fully with the characters.
The other thing that is surprisingly hard to do in audio is action. A fight scene needs to be over really quickly because otherwise the listener is being treated to a whole series of bangs and whaps that don't provide anything much for the listener's imagination to grab onto... and a blow by blow description (while in keeping with many of the conventions of the genre) starts to sound like a commentary at a prize fight. When it comes to descriptions of what the characters see, hear and experience, you want just enough to tell the audience what they need to know about the environment without it sounding so unrealistic that it jettisons them out of the story.
Another thing that's easy to forget is that the listener will not know who is speaking unless someone among the characters refers to that character by name. My very first (and thankfully long buried) attempt at script writing suffered from this problem but I still have to go through my completed scripts and make sure all the characters have been properly identified out loud before I send them off to my editor.
BTW - finding a skilled editor to whip my work into shape is an absolute must as a self-publisher. I can't begin to say how much embarrassment I have been saved by the sharp eye of my editor. That isn’t to say that there isn't plenty more embarrassment to be had for which I am solely responsible.
Pulp Adventure - Episode 2
How do you structure your work?
I write in episodic format. That is, I write as if I'm writing episodes in a radio serial. Most of the old radio stories of the past were limited to around twenty to forty minutes or so. I find that twenty minutes is too short for telling the kind of stories I want to tell (though the discipline of paring back a story until it can be told in twenty minutes is a good one). I write what I call "feature length" plays to be read over an hour and a half to two hours and while I am writing self-contained episodes they do each contribute to a larger story.
When it comes to the structure of my writing I find the good old three act story structure really helpful. I know lots of writers hate it, find it confining and formulaic, and in some cases even deny that it exists, but I find it helpful as a way of keeping momentum in my writing and stopping me from becoming dull. It also gives me a bridging structure for the wider story arc of each serial I write. Personally I'm not a high-concept kind of writer. Don't get me wrong, I wish I had the talent for that and envy those that do. Instead I write the kind of stories I enjoy; adventures, usually with a deal of mystery and supernatural suspense thrown in for good measure. I also write to entertain. While I like to have good-guys who are good and bad-guys who are bad, I'm not writing to instruct or make any deep moral statements about the world. I leave that kind of thing to better writers than I am. I'm simply having fun and hoping my readers do as well.
Gaslamp Mystery - Episode 1
Do you have a specific process or schedule?
I have two small children and a day job so writing is something I do in my spare time. I try to write something every day but I don't always get the chance. I don't beat myself up over this. Life happens and if I get to spend some time writing four days out of seven, I call it a win and move on. I begin with a fairly detailed outline, breaking down the acts, plot points, and character points in the story. I don't bother breaking down the scenes at this stage but I do build a pretty clear outline of all the events in the story before I sit down to write the first draft. For me an outline is essential – it gives me confidence that most of the plot problems have been solved before the writing begins.
I write the first draft straight through. Not necessarily in one sitting but usually without going back over the text until it is all complete. I have found that if I start polishing before the first draft is complete I waste a huge amount of time writing and re-writing the same material over and over and eventually abandon the whole thing.
Once the first draft is written I go back to the beginning and start revising. I look for plot holes, stuff that doesn't make sense, redundancy, places where my pace is either too slow or too quick (still working on this one), and points at which I can punch up the character interaction. I also check to see that I've been able to maintain the voices of my characters authentically. Finally, I revise for spelling, grammar, and punctuation problems.
Technically I guess that's just three drafts, but my second and third drafts are a form of death by a thousand cuts where I go over and over the text until I feel that I can stand to look at it without complete embarrassment. I'm not the kind of writer who will spend forever perfecting every turn of phrase. I like telling stories and am too impatient to connect with an audience for that kind of perfectionism. Besides I've ruined more than one story by overworking it. They say that no work of art is ever finished, merely abandoned, and I guess that's true of my writing (though whether it qualifies as art is something I'll leave to the reader).
Fantasy Noir - Episode 1
What's the most unique thing about your writing?
Probably the most unique thing about my writing is its packaging. The plays I write, while fun to read in their own right, are designed to be performed as part of a dinner party by a group of from 6 to 8 participants. The six episodes I've published so far include everything you need to host a fun dinner party and script reading; costume ideas, period recipes, instructions for a "build it yourself" sound effects kit, and, of course, an original script. I came up with the idea as I puzzled over how I might take part in the apparent revival that audio drama online has been enjoying in recent years. Unfortunately I don’t have the technical expertise to create a podcast, nor access to the acting talent necessary to create an audio drama.
In light of this I spent some time thinking about what I really enjoyed about the radio dramas of yore and I was suddenly struck by something. For me, the fond memories are all tied up with the time spent listening with family. It was about the fun we had together living the experience in our imaginations. I would laugh myself hoarse listening to the Goon Show and other programs. They were great times of fun, family, food and community.
As I thought about this it occurred to me that, as much as I love professionally produced audio drama, there might be a way to recapture some of that sense of fun and community without necessarily having to invest heavily in technology and good actors. Earlier this year we held our first dinner party/script reading with an original script that I wrote to celebrate my forty third birthday. We had a blast. Food, friends, fun, and one thing more that I don't think you get by merely listening; a sense of being inside and part of the story.
What's the biggest challenge you face?
The biggest challenge I face as I enter the world of self-publishing is that of marketing my own work. Frankly... marketing is not what I'm best at. Like most people who enjoy writing (a fairly solitary task by its very nature) I don't actually know that many people. The big challenge for me, then, is spreading the word that these stories exist.
Thanks Philip! So, with Christmas just 13 weeks away, why not take a look at hosting your own party, or giving a radio as a unique and interesting gift from as little as 5.99?
Philip Craig Robotham’s “Host your own Old-Time Audio Drama” scripts are available in pdf, e-book, and print on demand versions. Check out the facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/weirdworldstudioscom) and website (http://www.weirdworldstudios.com/) for more information or to place an order
To convince you of how much fun these can be, I'm giving away 5 copies of any of these scripts. All you need to do to enter is leave a comment saying which radio play you want, and you'll go into the random draw to win one. Entries close in a week, Tuesday 1st October.
Today, to fill in my very conspicuous gap, I have the wonderful Philip Craig Robotham doing a guest interview.
Philip has started up his own company, weirdworldstudios.com, producing audio drama scripts in the style of old time radio plays packaged as a fun dinner party idea. While still holding down his day job, Philip has created radio plays for three serials; Pulp Adventure, Gaslamp Mystery and Fantasy Noir. Today we talk about why radio plays, how he writes, and the challenges associated with starting a writing career.
What inspires you to write?
For me writing is enormous fun. I do it because I love the thrill of creating and allowing my imagination to run wild. I'm also an old-time radio fan. I enjoy everything from adventures like "Gunsmoke", "the Green Hornet", "the Saint", and "Yours Truly Johnny Dollar", through comedies such as "the Goon Show" and "Fibber McGee and Molly", through science fiction like "X Minus 1" and "ProjectXx", through to horror and suspense like "the Inner Sanctum".
It's typical of me that the genre of writing that gets me excited the most is one which died out more than forty years ago. All the same, it's what I love and seems to be having something of a resurgence lately via the internet. There have been some great examples of audio drama made available recently from podcasters online. These include the fabulous "Adventures of the Red Panda", the haunting and creepy "Wormwood", the extremely professional "Leviathan Chronicles", and far too many others to list.
I'm not a particularly florid writer. I like plain speech and simple exposition. I'm also not overly fond of having to write lengthy descriptions of people and places. As a result radio writing seems to have been made for me.
The first of the Pulp Adventure SeriesHow does writing an audio drama differ from other genres?Writing for the ear is very different to any other kind of writing that I have ever done. For one thing everything is exposition. In real life no-one ever says "look out Claire, he's holding a gun!", but in an audio drama it's essential to spell out what is happening for the listener. It's also very hard to write an audio drama with a lone character in it. If you do then you'll find yourself forced to have the character talking to him or herself constantly. The old Sam Spade voice-over was probably invented for radio shows relying on a single main character:"I walked the last 18 steps to the battered old front door. The lock had been jimmied and swung creaking on its hinges in the evening breeze."
There’s great atmosphere in these monologues but, personally, I like my characters to have company and it lets me indulge my taste for banter:"What are we doing here, boss?" "Old man Cranston invited us to come visit him up at the house." "Yeah? Battered looking old place isn't it? Give me a second and I'll try the door... Hey, the lock's broken! This door's been jimmied open." "What gave it away, genius? The fact that it was swinging back and forth on its hinges or the crowbar lying in the dirt beside it?" I also like conflict and a bit of "sass". It’s harder to have that with a lone character.
One thing you really develop when writing an audio script is your ability to do dialog and characterisation (especially dialog). That's simply because dialog is all you have to work with most of the time. You don't have to spend a lot of time labouring over descriptions of people and places when you write for radio - the listener will supply all the detail with their own imaginations - but you do have to manage dialog. In fact a judicious lack of physical description engages the listener’s imagination more effectively and helps them to identify themselves more fully with the characters.
The other thing that is surprisingly hard to do in audio is action. A fight scene needs to be over really quickly because otherwise the listener is being treated to a whole series of bangs and whaps that don't provide anything much for the listener's imagination to grab onto... and a blow by blow description (while in keeping with many of the conventions of the genre) starts to sound like a commentary at a prize fight. When it comes to descriptions of what the characters see, hear and experience, you want just enough to tell the audience what they need to know about the environment without it sounding so unrealistic that it jettisons them out of the story.
Another thing that's easy to forget is that the listener will not know who is speaking unless someone among the characters refers to that character by name. My very first (and thankfully long buried) attempt at script writing suffered from this problem but I still have to go through my completed scripts and make sure all the characters have been properly identified out loud before I send them off to my editor.
BTW - finding a skilled editor to whip my work into shape is an absolute must as a self-publisher. I can't begin to say how much embarrassment I have been saved by the sharp eye of my editor. That isn’t to say that there isn't plenty more embarrassment to be had for which I am solely responsible.
Pulp Adventure - Episode 2How do you structure your work?
I write in episodic format. That is, I write as if I'm writing episodes in a radio serial. Most of the old radio stories of the past were limited to around twenty to forty minutes or so. I find that twenty minutes is too short for telling the kind of stories I want to tell (though the discipline of paring back a story until it can be told in twenty minutes is a good one). I write what I call "feature length" plays to be read over an hour and a half to two hours and while I am writing self-contained episodes they do each contribute to a larger story.
When it comes to the structure of my writing I find the good old three act story structure really helpful. I know lots of writers hate it, find it confining and formulaic, and in some cases even deny that it exists, but I find it helpful as a way of keeping momentum in my writing and stopping me from becoming dull. It also gives me a bridging structure for the wider story arc of each serial I write. Personally I'm not a high-concept kind of writer. Don't get me wrong, I wish I had the talent for that and envy those that do. Instead I write the kind of stories I enjoy; adventures, usually with a deal of mystery and supernatural suspense thrown in for good measure. I also write to entertain. While I like to have good-guys who are good and bad-guys who are bad, I'm not writing to instruct or make any deep moral statements about the world. I leave that kind of thing to better writers than I am. I'm simply having fun and hoping my readers do as well.
Gaslamp Mystery - Episode 1Do you have a specific process or schedule?
I have two small children and a day job so writing is something I do in my spare time. I try to write something every day but I don't always get the chance. I don't beat myself up over this. Life happens and if I get to spend some time writing four days out of seven, I call it a win and move on. I begin with a fairly detailed outline, breaking down the acts, plot points, and character points in the story. I don't bother breaking down the scenes at this stage but I do build a pretty clear outline of all the events in the story before I sit down to write the first draft. For me an outline is essential – it gives me confidence that most of the plot problems have been solved before the writing begins.
I write the first draft straight through. Not necessarily in one sitting but usually without going back over the text until it is all complete. I have found that if I start polishing before the first draft is complete I waste a huge amount of time writing and re-writing the same material over and over and eventually abandon the whole thing.
Once the first draft is written I go back to the beginning and start revising. I look for plot holes, stuff that doesn't make sense, redundancy, places where my pace is either too slow or too quick (still working on this one), and points at which I can punch up the character interaction. I also check to see that I've been able to maintain the voices of my characters authentically. Finally, I revise for spelling, grammar, and punctuation problems.
Technically I guess that's just three drafts, but my second and third drafts are a form of death by a thousand cuts where I go over and over the text until I feel that I can stand to look at it without complete embarrassment. I'm not the kind of writer who will spend forever perfecting every turn of phrase. I like telling stories and am too impatient to connect with an audience for that kind of perfectionism. Besides I've ruined more than one story by overworking it. They say that no work of art is ever finished, merely abandoned, and I guess that's true of my writing (though whether it qualifies as art is something I'll leave to the reader).
Fantasy Noir - Episode 1What's the most unique thing about your writing?
Probably the most unique thing about my writing is its packaging. The plays I write, while fun to read in their own right, are designed to be performed as part of a dinner party by a group of from 6 to 8 participants. The six episodes I've published so far include everything you need to host a fun dinner party and script reading; costume ideas, period recipes, instructions for a "build it yourself" sound effects kit, and, of course, an original script. I came up with the idea as I puzzled over how I might take part in the apparent revival that audio drama online has been enjoying in recent years. Unfortunately I don’t have the technical expertise to create a podcast, nor access to the acting talent necessary to create an audio drama.
In light of this I spent some time thinking about what I really enjoyed about the radio dramas of yore and I was suddenly struck by something. For me, the fond memories are all tied up with the time spent listening with family. It was about the fun we had together living the experience in our imaginations. I would laugh myself hoarse listening to the Goon Show and other programs. They were great times of fun, family, food and community.
As I thought about this it occurred to me that, as much as I love professionally produced audio drama, there might be a way to recapture some of that sense of fun and community without necessarily having to invest heavily in technology and good actors. Earlier this year we held our first dinner party/script reading with an original script that I wrote to celebrate my forty third birthday. We had a blast. Food, friends, fun, and one thing more that I don't think you get by merely listening; a sense of being inside and part of the story.
What's the biggest challenge you face?
The biggest challenge I face as I enter the world of self-publishing is that of marketing my own work. Frankly... marketing is not what I'm best at. Like most people who enjoy writing (a fairly solitary task by its very nature) I don't actually know that many people. The big challenge for me, then, is spreading the word that these stories exist.
Thanks Philip! So, with Christmas just 13 weeks away, why not take a look at hosting your own party, or giving a radio as a unique and interesting gift from as little as 5.99?
Philip Craig Robotham’s “Host your own Old-Time Audio Drama” scripts are available in pdf, e-book, and print on demand versions. Check out the facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/weirdworldstudioscom) and website (http://www.weirdworldstudios.com/) for more information or to place an order
To convince you of how much fun these can be, I'm giving away 5 copies of any of these scripts. All you need to do to enter is leave a comment saying which radio play you want, and you'll go into the random draw to win one. Entries close in a week, Tuesday 1st October.
September 16, 2013
Mid-Move Update
So today is the day. I'm moving from my beautiful little 1 bedroom apartment in trendy South Yarra and starting the life of a nomad for a few months.
Apologies all for not updating regularly. Here is what's been happening:
Decided last week that I needed to get my aunt's novella and my brother's book ready for print on demand within two weeks. Then my father asked if I could also get his short handbook proofed, formatted, cover made and ready for print on demand as well in that timeframe. I, being silly, said I would give it a go.
The reason for the rush is that I'm off to a christian conference on 11th October, and want to set up a table with the other book sellers (makes me feel quite official, sort of like a publisher!). However, since I'm printing with Createspace, the time it takes to get the proof shipped out and then the orders, even paying the ridiculous amount for express post, still means I need to be done much, much earlier.
On a side note, this is one of the reasons I've started looking at Lightning Source instead, as they have a group in Australia, so I wouldn't have to wait or pay the postage. I'm in the process of signing up with them, but there is a lot more involved, as I have to be approved as a publisher (which I have been, yah!), and then sign all the contracts etc. As my business paperwork (and people thought I was silly for actually registering as a business) is of course in the packing. But hopefully when I have it all done, it will be great. The sales rep also let slip that they actually do all Createspace's actual printing, so I was sure to be happy with the comparison of quality. Good to know.
In summary, I finished my aunt's book, and the proof should be coming late this week. My brother's book is formatted, but I'm still proofing it as I found more typos. I've also finished the full cover. My father's book I've started formatting and proofing, probably done the first half. Have an idea for the cover, but nothing more.
Then I've spent the last two days doing nothing but packing. Have I mentioned how much I hate packing? The removalists are here right now taking it all away, yah. This is the first time I've hired removalists just for myselt, and it was a brilliant idea.
I'm madly trying to type this before i disconnect my wireless internet :D
On my own writing side, I haven't had a chance to edit After the Winter yet, but I'm one session off finishing The Five Day Writer's Bootcamp, and it's really good (if I do say so myself). The rest of the week is probably going to be a write-off, but maybe on the weekend I can get it finished. Haven't quite decided which of the next ideas is going to be my project, and whether to put my effort into editing The Nice Guys Guide to Online Dating Profiles or After the winter first.
So will let you know more when I'm not standing surrounded by boxes.
Lots of love,
Buffy
Apologies all for not updating regularly. Here is what's been happening:
Decided last week that I needed to get my aunt's novella and my brother's book ready for print on demand within two weeks. Then my father asked if I could also get his short handbook proofed, formatted, cover made and ready for print on demand as well in that timeframe. I, being silly, said I would give it a go.
The reason for the rush is that I'm off to a christian conference on 11th October, and want to set up a table with the other book sellers (makes me feel quite official, sort of like a publisher!). However, since I'm printing with Createspace, the time it takes to get the proof shipped out and then the orders, even paying the ridiculous amount for express post, still means I need to be done much, much earlier.
On a side note, this is one of the reasons I've started looking at Lightning Source instead, as they have a group in Australia, so I wouldn't have to wait or pay the postage. I'm in the process of signing up with them, but there is a lot more involved, as I have to be approved as a publisher (which I have been, yah!), and then sign all the contracts etc. As my business paperwork (and people thought I was silly for actually registering as a business) is of course in the packing. But hopefully when I have it all done, it will be great. The sales rep also let slip that they actually do all Createspace's actual printing, so I was sure to be happy with the comparison of quality. Good to know.
In summary, I finished my aunt's book, and the proof should be coming late this week. My brother's book is formatted, but I'm still proofing it as I found more typos. I've also finished the full cover. My father's book I've started formatting and proofing, probably done the first half. Have an idea for the cover, but nothing more.
Then I've spent the last two days doing nothing but packing. Have I mentioned how much I hate packing? The removalists are here right now taking it all away, yah. This is the first time I've hired removalists just for myselt, and it was a brilliant idea.
I'm madly trying to type this before i disconnect my wireless internet :D
On my own writing side, I haven't had a chance to edit After the Winter yet, but I'm one session off finishing The Five Day Writer's Bootcamp, and it's really good (if I do say so myself). The rest of the week is probably going to be a write-off, but maybe on the weekend I can get it finished. Haven't quite decided which of the next ideas is going to be my project, and whether to put my effort into editing The Nice Guys Guide to Online Dating Profiles or After the winter first.
So will let you know more when I'm not standing surrounded by boxes.
Lots of love,
Buffy
September 5, 2013
My Love For Scrivener Continues...
I mentioned awhile ago, I'm sure I did, that I had moved over to using Scrivener for my writing. At first it was just because Word does its weird auto-formatting thing that makes e-books unpredictable. As you have to use Word to upload to Smashwords (though, I think they do now take epub, but you still need to get your word document to epub somehow), I wanted a more reliable way than writing the whole thing and then spending hours removing all the formatting and redoing the whole thing.
I had heard a bit about Scrivener, and one friend had tried to tell me that if I was serious about writing I should really test it out. So I finally took the plunge and signed up for their 30 day trial (which, by the way is awesome because it counts the number of days you use it for, not 30 calendar days from when you sign up.)
I'm in love. I don't think I've taken up a new piece of software as quickly as I've accepted Scrivener. I can't imagine working on any of my drafts not using it now. It does take some getting used to, but its benefits are so useful straight away that it's worth it.
I highly recommend watching at least the 10 minute video tutorial, because it is so packed with features that it is hard to work out everything it can do. I must admit, there is a 30 minute walk through tutorial which I've never done, but maybe one day I will.
I'm still discovering a lot of the features, and there are a few things which I find annoying and am sure there must be a way around, I just haven't worked them out yet. However, I just wanted to highlight one way that it has totally changed my writing.
Scrivener works in scenes and chapters, and when you are finished you 'compile' it altogether into whatever document type you need. So I've been going through importing the previous stories I've written in Word, and breaking them up into scenes so I can see how it is all fitting together. This has highlighted a serious problem in my previous writing: my chapter and scene lengths were all over the place!
Scrivener automatically displays the word count for that section down the bottom. So as I've been dividing these long documents into their scenes, I've suddenly realised that my chapters vary between 1,000 and 4,000+ words! This might be okay if I were doing it on purpose to make certain points. But I wasn't, I just wasn't writing very well.
I'm currently going through my 50,000 word draft of After The Winter. It is really illuminating to see it all broken up into scenes, because I can see where I need to expand, and other areas that are too long. Using Scrivener's outline form (which looks like cue cards on a corkboard, see below) I can type up short summaries of each scene and what I need to add to make the story work. It is giving me a clear path on what needs to be done and taken away a lot of the fear I had about it last night (to the point where I didn't start editing at all, because I was just overwhelmed with what needed to be done).
It also helps that I can easily jump around the entire document, because the scenes outlined on the left hand side. When you are editing and/or planning, this is invaluable because I keep getting ideas like 'oh, I need to explain that when they first meet', and can skip back, put a note on the card, and be back to where I was in less than 20 seconds. Much easier than scrolling to where you think that scene was, trying to find somewhere you can leave a note, then scrolling back to where you were.
So hopefully I will have a much more evenly written book by the time I'm finished, and more fun while I'm doing the actual writing (which is not to be underestimated).
Anyone else have great tips or features they have found with Scrivener?
September 4, 2013
Faith In Writing
I was just watching a Joyce Meyer TV podcast (does that sound like an oxymoron to anyone else?). For those of you who don't know, Joyce Meyer is an American Christian speaker, whom I love for her down to earth attitude. She reminds me very much of my mother. She's not worried with the big theologies, but that you gossiped behind someone's back. While the big theologies do need to be thought out and fought for, I think we will find that God in the end cares more about the little stuff we've done (yes, I studied theology at Oxford, which is why I think I can say this).
Anyway, back to my point. She was talking about faith. In my theology blog, Buffy and God - The Blog, I did an early post on What Is Faith? So sometimes I feel that if I've written on it, I don't need to think about it anymore. However, it was good to be reminded, especially now because I think it applies very strongly to my writing as well.
Joyce was saying that faith isn't something that we feel but the way that we act, where we put our trust, and that this once acted upon can bring the feeling. Does anyone else find their writing like this? I know I love writing, but there are a lot of times I don't feel like writing, which at times makes me question whether I really should be doing it. However, whenever I step out in faith and force myself to sit down, the good feelings towards writing (usually) come flooding back.
Same with this blog. I struggle to even write on it, though once I get going I realise I have so much I want to say. Though, at the moment I'm a little drained of writing advice. I'm working on the second Five Day Writer's book: The Five Day Writer's Bootcamp. I'm just over a 1/4 of the way through, and ideally would like the first done by the end of the week, but realistically think it will be next week. Pouring out that much writing related advice does leave me a bit dry for writing on the blog. All the good things I have to say are going in there, so just read the book when it comes out. (And not to toot my own horn, but some of the ideas that are coming out are surprisingly good, even to me! Now I just need to put them into practice :D).
So the point of today's little ramble is to have faith: act as if you are a writer, and don't fear because you don't feel like you are one.
ROW 80 Check-In:
I finally finished the first draft of A Nice Guy's Guide To Online Dating Profiles. It took longer than I wanted, but I was good and after the two weeks were up, I started on my next project and worked on this only in the evenings as overtime. It took me another week, but it is now all there in rough form. Now I just need to edit it, get one of my great fellow editors to go over it, and then it will be available to the world. If you know any guys that could do with a few handy and friendly hints, this is the book for them. It's clear, practical, and not designed to make them feel like crap about themselves (so many things out there were really negative! Don't they realise that most unsuccessful guys just need to be given a few more tips, not made to feel even worse?)
As mentioned above, just over 1/4 through Bootcamp. Am getting back into my routine of waking up at 7am and writing for at least 2 hours before doing anything else. Up until recently I haven't been as faithful with my writing, so have lost a lot of my speed which is sad. Slowly working my way back up, but at the moment am averaging around 1,000 words an hour, compared to my previous 2,000-2,5000. Should probably follow more of my own writing advice! Does it make me a fraud if I can give other people really good writing advice but don't always do it myself? Anyone else do this? (okay, admittedly I can also give other people really good dieting advice, but watch out if you leave me alone with a block of choc.)
Lots of editing for other people to be done, which is great, but struggling to do more than an hour or two a day at the moment. However, I think the stress of trying to move might be affecting my working ability. My apartment is in a shambles as I've tried to start sorting things, which involves pulling everything out of the drawers, then not knowing where to put them, so covering all the surfaces in different piles, deciding that before I sort this pile I really need to sort that pile, and eventually curling up on the couch fearful that the towering piles are going to crash down on me and I'll only be found when the Alsatians come to eat my body. Since the removalists are coming two weeks today, I probably shouldn't have started so early, and just done a made rush at the end. Oh well.
Other writing news, am going to start looking again at After The Winter, my 1920's romance tonight. I really love the characters in this, and want to write them through to their happy ending, but just feel the beginning is not so good, so every time I start looking at it I get discouraged. But this time I'm going to see it through. Lucinda, I will get you with Lord George if it's the last thing I do! There, now I have to do it, or my characters will come and murder me in my sleep.
Nothing else to report, so I hope that you are all going well with your various projects. And sorry to the northern hemisphere, but I'm SOOOOOO glad that spring has finally arrived! Instant mood boost. Just to make you all jealous, this was my walk to the Melbourne Writer's Festival on Friday.
Anyway, back to my point. She was talking about faith. In my theology blog, Buffy and God - The Blog, I did an early post on What Is Faith? So sometimes I feel that if I've written on it, I don't need to think about it anymore. However, it was good to be reminded, especially now because I think it applies very strongly to my writing as well.
Joyce was saying that faith isn't something that we feel but the way that we act, where we put our trust, and that this once acted upon can bring the feeling. Does anyone else find their writing like this? I know I love writing, but there are a lot of times I don't feel like writing, which at times makes me question whether I really should be doing it. However, whenever I step out in faith and force myself to sit down, the good feelings towards writing (usually) come flooding back.
Same with this blog. I struggle to even write on it, though once I get going I realise I have so much I want to say. Though, at the moment I'm a little drained of writing advice. I'm working on the second Five Day Writer's book: The Five Day Writer's Bootcamp. I'm just over a 1/4 of the way through, and ideally would like the first done by the end of the week, but realistically think it will be next week. Pouring out that much writing related advice does leave me a bit dry for writing on the blog. All the good things I have to say are going in there, so just read the book when it comes out. (And not to toot my own horn, but some of the ideas that are coming out are surprisingly good, even to me! Now I just need to put them into practice :D).
So the point of today's little ramble is to have faith: act as if you are a writer, and don't fear because you don't feel like you are one.
ROW 80 Check-In:
I finally finished the first draft of A Nice Guy's Guide To Online Dating Profiles. It took longer than I wanted, but I was good and after the two weeks were up, I started on my next project and worked on this only in the evenings as overtime. It took me another week, but it is now all there in rough form. Now I just need to edit it, get one of my great fellow editors to go over it, and then it will be available to the world. If you know any guys that could do with a few handy and friendly hints, this is the book for them. It's clear, practical, and not designed to make them feel like crap about themselves (so many things out there were really negative! Don't they realise that most unsuccessful guys just need to be given a few more tips, not made to feel even worse?)
As mentioned above, just over 1/4 through Bootcamp. Am getting back into my routine of waking up at 7am and writing for at least 2 hours before doing anything else. Up until recently I haven't been as faithful with my writing, so have lost a lot of my speed which is sad. Slowly working my way back up, but at the moment am averaging around 1,000 words an hour, compared to my previous 2,000-2,5000. Should probably follow more of my own writing advice! Does it make me a fraud if I can give other people really good writing advice but don't always do it myself? Anyone else do this? (okay, admittedly I can also give other people really good dieting advice, but watch out if you leave me alone with a block of choc.)
Lots of editing for other people to be done, which is great, but struggling to do more than an hour or two a day at the moment. However, I think the stress of trying to move might be affecting my working ability. My apartment is in a shambles as I've tried to start sorting things, which involves pulling everything out of the drawers, then not knowing where to put them, so covering all the surfaces in different piles, deciding that before I sort this pile I really need to sort that pile, and eventually curling up on the couch fearful that the towering piles are going to crash down on me and I'll only be found when the Alsatians come to eat my body. Since the removalists are coming two weeks today, I probably shouldn't have started so early, and just done a made rush at the end. Oh well.
Other writing news, am going to start looking again at After The Winter, my 1920's romance tonight. I really love the characters in this, and want to write them through to their happy ending, but just feel the beginning is not so good, so every time I start looking at it I get discouraged. But this time I'm going to see it through. Lucinda, I will get you with Lord George if it's the last thing I do! There, now I have to do it, or my characters will come and murder me in my sleep.
Nothing else to report, so I hope that you are all going well with your various projects. And sorry to the northern hemisphere, but I'm SOOOOOO glad that spring has finally arrived! Instant mood boost. Just to make you all jealous, this was my walk to the Melbourne Writer's Festival on Friday.
August 28, 2013
Editing Metaphor and ROW 80 Check-In
I want to start with a metaphor for editing. It is a piece of writing that has been used as a metaphor for many things, and I have to admit that the author probably did not mean it to refer to the writing process. Though he was an English professor himself, so might appreciate the use.
It comes from C.S. Lewis' Voyage of the Dawn Treader, chapter 7. The most irritating character in the entire book is a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrub, and as the narrator notes 'he almost deserved it.' Part way through the book, for those of you who don't know it, Eustace becomes a dragon.
I think that often when we are trying to write a book, our first draft is as rough and ungainly as a dragon, though we wish it to be slim and delicate like a child. So how do we go from one state to the other?
Have a read of the conversation between Eustace and his cousin Edmund, when Eustace is found to be a boy again.
'Well, as I say, I was lying awake and wondering what on earth would become of me. And then - but, mind you, it may have been all a dream. I don't know."
"Go on," said Edmund, with considerable patience.
"Well, anyway, I looked up and saw the very last thing I expected: a huge lion coming slowly towards me. And one queer thing was that there was no moon last night, but there was moonlight where the lion was. So it came nearer and nearer. I was terribly afraid of it. You may think that, being a dragon, I could have knocked any lion out easily enough. But it wasn't that kind of fear. I wasn't afraid of it eating me, I was just afraid of it - if you can understand. Well, it came close up to me and looked straight into my eyes. And I shut my eyes tight. But that wasn't any good because it told me to follow it."
"You mean it spoke?"
"I don't know. Now that you mention it, I don't think it did. But it told me all the same. And I knew I'd have to do what it told me, so I got up and followed it. And it led me a long way into the mountains. And there was always this moonlight over and round the lion wherever we went. So at last we came to the top of a mountain I'd never seen before and on the top of this mountain there was a garden - trees and fruit and everything. In the middle of it there was a well.
"I knew it was a well because you could see the water bubbling up from the bottom of it: but it was a lot bigger than most wells - like a very big, round bath with marble steps going down into it. The water was as clear as anything and I thought if I could get in there and bathe it would ease the pain in my leg. But the lion told me I must undress first. Mind you, I don't know if he said any words out loud or not.
"I was just going to say that I couldn't undress because I hadn't any clothes on when I suddenly thought that dragons are snaky sort of things and snakes can cast their skins. Oh, of course, thought I, that's what the lion means. So I started scratching myself and my scales began coming off all over the place. And then I scratched a little deeper and, instead of just scales coming off here and there, my whole skin started peeling off beautifully, like it does after an illness, or as if I was a banana. In a minute or two I just stepped out of it. I could see it lying there beside me, looking rather nasty. It was a most lovely feeling. So I started to go down into the well for my bathe.
"But just as I was going to put my feet into the water I looked down and saw that they were all hard and rough and wrinkled and scaly just as they had been before. Oh, that's all right, said I, it only means I had another smaller suit on underneath the first one, and I'll have to get out of it too. So 1 scratched and tore again and this underskin peeled off beautifully and out I stepped and left it lying beside the other one and went down to the well for my bathe.
"Well, exactly the same thing happened again. And I thought to myself, oh dear, how ever many skins have I got to take off? For I was longing to bathe my leg. So I scratched away for the third time and got off a third skin, just like the two others, and stepped out of it. But as soon as I looked at myself in the water I knew it had been no good.
"Then the lion said" - but I don't know if it spoke - "You will have to let me undress you." I was afraid of his claws, I can tell you, but I was pretty nearly desperate now. So I just lay flat down on my back to let him do it.
"The very first tear he made was so deep that I thought it had gone right into my heart. And when he began pulling the skin off, it hurt worse than anything I've ever felt. The only thing that made me able to bear it was just the pleasure of feeling the stuff peel off. You know - if you've ever picked the scab off a sore place. It hurts like billy-oh but it is such fun to see it coming away."
"I know exactly what you mean," said Edmund.
"Well, he peeled the beastly stuff right off - just as I thought I'd done it myself the other three times, only they hadn't hurt - and there it was lying on the grass: only ever so much thicker, and darker, and more knobbly-looking than the others had been. And there was I as smooth and soft as a peeled switch and smaller than I had been. Then he caught hold of me - I didn't like that much for I was very tender underneath now that I'd no skin on - and threw me into the water. It smarted like anything but only for a moment. After that it became perfectly delicious and as soon as I started swimming and splashing I found that all the pain had gone from my arm. And then I saw why. I'd turned into a boy again."
Editing, I believe, should always start with our own efforts. But not just scratching off a few words here and a few words there, but deep raking cuts that rip out entire sections. We should do that again and again until we can do no more. Then we must give it over to someone else, because we will rarely edit down til it hurts, and it is only then that you get through to the delicate message underneath. Editing is a hard lesson to learn, but so worth it when you have the chiseled, perfect product in front of you.
I hope that imagery worked as well for you as it did for me.
ROW 80 Check-in:
I'm currently working away being a busy little bee, probably in a few too many areas of my life.
1. Starting last Friday, and continuing until this Sunday I'm volunteering at the Melbourne Writers Festival. This has been fun, and allowed me to go to other talks for free. However I have to admit that the 4-5 hour shifts, especially when they involve something thrilling like standing in foyer pointing people towards the appropriate rooms and not being able to sit down, do have their drawbacks. I've actually only had two shifts so far, and another on tomorrow and Friday, but they leave me exhausted. Having said that, it is great knowing what is happening in the Australian writing scene, who's who, and what works are coming out.
2. At the beginning of this week I started my next two week draft: The Five Day Writer's Bootcamp, the sequel to Retreat. It's going well, and I'm enjoying writing it because some of the ideas that come out are novel to me too! I hope to get the first draft completed by the end of the next week, and then the goal is to have it published by the end of September, depending on if one of my editors has time to go through it. I'm off to a writing conference on the 11th of October. I plan to get a table so I can sell copies of Retreat and Bootcamp, as well as other books I've helped produce, if I can.
3. The project for last fortnight was The Nice Guy's Guide To Online Dating Profiles. As I actually only spent a week on it, it was not completely done. I had scheduled this week and next to edit it in the evenings (after writing, working on my business, and doing all those annoying life things). I think I should be able to get it finished and edited in that time. This is not an important project, but just something I think will help a lot of men out there. It will only be in e-book format, and hopefully should be live by the end of September as well.
4. I've been working on a few business projects. I'm still editing my aunt's novella: A Mother's Story, and haven't gotten that up yet. However, I hope to do so as soon as possible. I've also finally sent off for my US tax exemption identity number so Amazon and Smashwords only take 5% instead of 30%. It was one of those things that once I got myself organised, didn't take that long, but was just difficult to work out what to do and where to look etc. It's now going to take about 10 weeks before I actually hear back. So, lets hope I filled in the paperwork correctly!
5. The other big news in my life at the moment is that I signed a break lease contract last week, and I'm moving out of my (beautiful) apartment to be nomadic until the end of the year. Mostly this was to keep costs down so I can give myself a decent shot at making it before having to get some other work. So I've had open for inspections Monday, Tuesday and today. Trying to keep my place perfectly clean for 3 days in a row has been a bit of a strain. However, it looks like they have found a great tenant, who will be able to move in just 10 days later than I wanted (considering the other possibility was that we found no one and I had to pay rent for months and months while not living there, this is great). Because I know ahead of time, I'm not going to move out for an extra week, so I get to enjoy my place for a little bit longer.
But in two weeks time I'm going to have to start the big clear out and pack. I'm hoping to do a major sort and declutter, giving away all the extra things I'm not going to use for quite a while. But this will take a lot of time going through everything, deciding what to keep and what to throw out, making sure it is clean to be packed into storage or given away, etc. However, once it's all done, it will feel great, like having a dragon skin removed!
Luckily I have nothing else planned for September, though in October things start to get busy again. I'm organising advertising for my weekend intensive. Here's a flyer I've made up today. What do you think? It's going to be A5, is it easy enough to read? Does it make you want to come to the country and write? Any suggestions?
It comes from C.S. Lewis' Voyage of the Dawn Treader, chapter 7. The most irritating character in the entire book is a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrub, and as the narrator notes 'he almost deserved it.' Part way through the book, for those of you who don't know it, Eustace becomes a dragon.
I think that often when we are trying to write a book, our first draft is as rough and ungainly as a dragon, though we wish it to be slim and delicate like a child. So how do we go from one state to the other?
Have a read of the conversation between Eustace and his cousin Edmund, when Eustace is found to be a boy again.
'Well, as I say, I was lying awake and wondering what on earth would become of me. And then - but, mind you, it may have been all a dream. I don't know."
"Go on," said Edmund, with considerable patience.
"Well, anyway, I looked up and saw the very last thing I expected: a huge lion coming slowly towards me. And one queer thing was that there was no moon last night, but there was moonlight where the lion was. So it came nearer and nearer. I was terribly afraid of it. You may think that, being a dragon, I could have knocked any lion out easily enough. But it wasn't that kind of fear. I wasn't afraid of it eating me, I was just afraid of it - if you can understand. Well, it came close up to me and looked straight into my eyes. And I shut my eyes tight. But that wasn't any good because it told me to follow it."
"You mean it spoke?"
"I don't know. Now that you mention it, I don't think it did. But it told me all the same. And I knew I'd have to do what it told me, so I got up and followed it. And it led me a long way into the mountains. And there was always this moonlight over and round the lion wherever we went. So at last we came to the top of a mountain I'd never seen before and on the top of this mountain there was a garden - trees and fruit and everything. In the middle of it there was a well.
"I knew it was a well because you could see the water bubbling up from the bottom of it: but it was a lot bigger than most wells - like a very big, round bath with marble steps going down into it. The water was as clear as anything and I thought if I could get in there and bathe it would ease the pain in my leg. But the lion told me I must undress first. Mind you, I don't know if he said any words out loud or not.
"I was just going to say that I couldn't undress because I hadn't any clothes on when I suddenly thought that dragons are snaky sort of things and snakes can cast their skins. Oh, of course, thought I, that's what the lion means. So I started scratching myself and my scales began coming off all over the place. And then I scratched a little deeper and, instead of just scales coming off here and there, my whole skin started peeling off beautifully, like it does after an illness, or as if I was a banana. In a minute or two I just stepped out of it. I could see it lying there beside me, looking rather nasty. It was a most lovely feeling. So I started to go down into the well for my bathe.
"But just as I was going to put my feet into the water I looked down and saw that they were all hard and rough and wrinkled and scaly just as they had been before. Oh, that's all right, said I, it only means I had another smaller suit on underneath the first one, and I'll have to get out of it too. So 1 scratched and tore again and this underskin peeled off beautifully and out I stepped and left it lying beside the other one and went down to the well for my bathe.
"Well, exactly the same thing happened again. And I thought to myself, oh dear, how ever many skins have I got to take off? For I was longing to bathe my leg. So I scratched away for the third time and got off a third skin, just like the two others, and stepped out of it. But as soon as I looked at myself in the water I knew it had been no good.
"Then the lion said" - but I don't know if it spoke - "You will have to let me undress you." I was afraid of his claws, I can tell you, but I was pretty nearly desperate now. So I just lay flat down on my back to let him do it.
"The very first tear he made was so deep that I thought it had gone right into my heart. And when he began pulling the skin off, it hurt worse than anything I've ever felt. The only thing that made me able to bear it was just the pleasure of feeling the stuff peel off. You know - if you've ever picked the scab off a sore place. It hurts like billy-oh but it is such fun to see it coming away."
"I know exactly what you mean," said Edmund.
"Well, he peeled the beastly stuff right off - just as I thought I'd done it myself the other three times, only they hadn't hurt - and there it was lying on the grass: only ever so much thicker, and darker, and more knobbly-looking than the others had been. And there was I as smooth and soft as a peeled switch and smaller than I had been. Then he caught hold of me - I didn't like that much for I was very tender underneath now that I'd no skin on - and threw me into the water. It smarted like anything but only for a moment. After that it became perfectly delicious and as soon as I started swimming and splashing I found that all the pain had gone from my arm. And then I saw why. I'd turned into a boy again."
Editing, I believe, should always start with our own efforts. But not just scratching off a few words here and a few words there, but deep raking cuts that rip out entire sections. We should do that again and again until we can do no more. Then we must give it over to someone else, because we will rarely edit down til it hurts, and it is only then that you get through to the delicate message underneath. Editing is a hard lesson to learn, but so worth it when you have the chiseled, perfect product in front of you.
I hope that imagery worked as well for you as it did for me.
ROW 80 Check-in:
I'm currently working away being a busy little bee, probably in a few too many areas of my life.
1. Starting last Friday, and continuing until this Sunday I'm volunteering at the Melbourne Writers Festival. This has been fun, and allowed me to go to other talks for free. However I have to admit that the 4-5 hour shifts, especially when they involve something thrilling like standing in foyer pointing people towards the appropriate rooms and not being able to sit down, do have their drawbacks. I've actually only had two shifts so far, and another on tomorrow and Friday, but they leave me exhausted. Having said that, it is great knowing what is happening in the Australian writing scene, who's who, and what works are coming out.
2. At the beginning of this week I started my next two week draft: The Five Day Writer's Bootcamp, the sequel to Retreat. It's going well, and I'm enjoying writing it because some of the ideas that come out are novel to me too! I hope to get the first draft completed by the end of the next week, and then the goal is to have it published by the end of September, depending on if one of my editors has time to go through it. I'm off to a writing conference on the 11th of October. I plan to get a table so I can sell copies of Retreat and Bootcamp, as well as other books I've helped produce, if I can.
3. The project for last fortnight was The Nice Guy's Guide To Online Dating Profiles. As I actually only spent a week on it, it was not completely done. I had scheduled this week and next to edit it in the evenings (after writing, working on my business, and doing all those annoying life things). I think I should be able to get it finished and edited in that time. This is not an important project, but just something I think will help a lot of men out there. It will only be in e-book format, and hopefully should be live by the end of September as well.
4. I've been working on a few business projects. I'm still editing my aunt's novella: A Mother's Story, and haven't gotten that up yet. However, I hope to do so as soon as possible. I've also finally sent off for my US tax exemption identity number so Amazon and Smashwords only take 5% instead of 30%. It was one of those things that once I got myself organised, didn't take that long, but was just difficult to work out what to do and where to look etc. It's now going to take about 10 weeks before I actually hear back. So, lets hope I filled in the paperwork correctly!
5. The other big news in my life at the moment is that I signed a break lease contract last week, and I'm moving out of my (beautiful) apartment to be nomadic until the end of the year. Mostly this was to keep costs down so I can give myself a decent shot at making it before having to get some other work. So I've had open for inspections Monday, Tuesday and today. Trying to keep my place perfectly clean for 3 days in a row has been a bit of a strain. However, it looks like they have found a great tenant, who will be able to move in just 10 days later than I wanted (considering the other possibility was that we found no one and I had to pay rent for months and months while not living there, this is great). Because I know ahead of time, I'm not going to move out for an extra week, so I get to enjoy my place for a little bit longer.
But in two weeks time I'm going to have to start the big clear out and pack. I'm hoping to do a major sort and declutter, giving away all the extra things I'm not going to use for quite a while. But this will take a lot of time going through everything, deciding what to keep and what to throw out, making sure it is clean to be packed into storage or given away, etc. However, once it's all done, it will feel great, like having a dragon skin removed!
Luckily I have nothing else planned for September, though in October things start to get busy again. I'm organising advertising for my weekend intensive. Here's a flyer I've made up today. What do you think? It's going to be A5, is it easy enough to read? Does it make you want to come to the country and write? Any suggestions?
August 21, 2013
KOP: How Often Should You Blog?
Courtesy of Jaylopez at stock.xchng So by now you have set up most of the basics to create your platform. All you need now is to put something out there and get people to read it!
So today's blog post is on a rather controversial topic: how often should you post on your blog? (no, I didn't realise this was controversial either until quite recently.)
Method 1: The More The Better
When I first started blogging, I read that you need to post regularly, at least 4 times a week. The logic for this was pretty sound:1. You want to build up a strong archive of good posts so that when people come to visit, they have something to actually read.2. The more posts = the more ways people can find you through search engines.3. If you don't keep updating your content, there is no reason for someone to keep visiting.4. If someone subscribes, then the more often you post, the more often you will pop up in their inbox, and the more they will remember you.
For example, Susan Gunelius on About.com suggests the following frequencies:For maximum growth: post multiple times per day to drive the most traffic (3-5 times or more is considered best for power bloggers). For steady growth: post at least once per day. For slower growth: publish at least every 3 days or 2-3 times per week. For very slow growth: posting less frequently than 2-3 days per week is most appropriate for bloggers who maintain blogs as a hobby with no strategic plans for growth
All of this sounded like very good advice. So for the first few months I tried to post 5 days a week, though generally managed 4. During this period my traffic slowly (painfully slowly) started to increase. Small miracles happened which would give me a sudden burst, and then it would settle down again.
When I had to go back to full time work, my number of posts dropped off. I wanted to do 3 times a week, but sometimes struggled to even make 1. During these times, there was a direct correlation between the number of times I posted and the traffic for that week. Every day that I did write something, there was a spike in my stats. After that, it would slowly decrease over the next few days until I posted again. This reinforced to me my need to post as frequently as I could.
However, on my fitness blog, which is newer than 100FD, I found that even though I posted less often and had less content (though it was solid) I still had stronger stats that didn't dwindle based on posting frequency. The reason for this is because the majority of traffic is from Google to a small number of articles which rank really well. I had spent time promoting a few of my articles so they ranked well, which ended up paying a lot more dividends than writing more posts. (I mainly used article marketing to get backlinks and authority.) This is much more in the style of the second suggested method.
Method 2: Less Writing, More Promotion
One advocate of this message is John Locke who wrote the book 'How I Sold A Million EBooks In 5 Months' (has some good tips here and there though a lot of his success I think is based on his personal circumstances and wouldn't work for everyone the same way. But since I paid $2.75 for the kindle version, I thought it was worth the investment.) He has a blog he posts on about once a month! I was completely shocked when I heard this. At the time of writing his book, he only had about 7 posts on the entire blog! So why does he do it this way? (And yes, it is a conscious decision, not just because he's lazy.)
The arguments in favour of this method include:1. You only have top quality content on your site.2. When you write a great piece, it doesn't immediately get buried but is available for people to read for a longer period.3. If you haven't got much traffic, you should spend more time generate traffic than putting up content that no one is reading. 4. Most of the reasons why you should post frequently don't apply as a new blogger: you aren't going to rank well on the search engines no matter what, and without readers or subscribers, no one is sharing your content or looking out for you. 5. Instead, you want exposure: you want to spend your time appearing on every major blog in your areas so people actually know you.
However, the keys to this method, which a lot of people ignore, is a) making sure your content is even stronger and better researched than if you posted more frequently and b) still spending the same amount of time on the computer, but just using it differently.
I have to say, this method has a lot going for it. With so many blogs out there, it is almost impossible to be found without a miracle if you aren't active in the community. Unless you already have a very strong readership who will come to you just because you are you, I think focusing on being known in the community is a much better use of your time.
In my own personal experience, I have to admit that the big jumps in traffic for me came from a) being linked to in Nathan Branford's post about Heifer International (which only happened because I was reading his blog and commented), b) being in ROW 80 and having my blog appear in a blog hop every week, then c) going to those other ROW 80 blogs and commenting and just being active in that community.
I heard another point in favour of infrequent posting on The Self-Publishing Podcast (this is a great podcast, though does have a lot of swearing and could easily be cut in half they spend so much time laughing at their own jokes. However, they do give some great tips in amongst that). Their advice was particularly focused on writers trying to become visible as an author (rather than just trying to get people to your blog to sell them things there). They suggested that if you have the material for a great post, instead of putting it on your blog, you should think about turning it into a free ebook to download through Amazon KDP Select. One of the hosts did this in reverse, taking a popular blog post and turning it into an ebook which is now free, and it gets downloaded roughly 90 times per day. That's a lot of people seeing you on Amazon where your other books will be.
Further, they argued that if you don't have a great idea for a post that day, spend the time on actually writing your novels! Don't blog at the expense of actually getting your writing out there because you can't count on becoming well-known based on even a handful of books. You need to be prolific (with quality) if you want to be discovered as an author.
This is good to remember, that your promotion should not be at the expensive of your writing. However, I also strongly believe that as a writer you need to practice as much as you can. What better way to practice and train as a writer than to spend 30 minutes a day or a few times a week writing and then getting feedback on that writing? The discipline itself is a great reason to blog more often. Further, for me, a lot of my blog posts help create my 'Five Day Writer' series, so the more I post, the more of my books I get written.
So, in summary, it's not as simple as blog more/ blog less.
Key Points To Remember:
- For either method, you are still spending the same time online (not writing novels/living/etc), just one is focused on producing more content, and the other is focused on getting more exposure for less content. - I believe you still need an archive of posts before you start promoting yourself.- If you want to build up your platform super-fast, then you need to spend more time overall both producing more content and getting more exposure. - Every new blogger needs to introduce themselves to the community somehow. Just writing content and hoping that someone will read it is a very, very slow way to go. - You are a writer! Writing blog posts is all part of your training. So don't be afraid of it. - Make sure you are in a niche that excites you enough that you can write lots of content.
Final point which I think is sound: whichever you decide to do, let your reader know. If they know how often and when you are going to post (every Monday, or every first Monday of the month) they will be more likely to remember to come back on check on you. Otherwise, they might keep coming back for a week and since nothing new is there give up. On the other hand, they might subscribe, but once they realise you post everyday, they might just start deleting you from their inbox.
Talking about subscribing... have you subscribed to 100 first drafts yet? Sign up to receive posts via email, or become a follower. (I'm trying to post 1-3 times per week at the moment, just in case you were wondering :D).
August 19, 2013
KDP Select, Self-Promotion and ROW 80 Check In.
So this week I spent a lot of time working on the finishing and promotion of my brother's book: Tom Grafton Vs. The Environmentalists.
The experience of editing a family member's work: To be completely honest, I had not read the book the entire way through until I started editing it. It was a strange experience, as the book was very my brother, which is weird for any sibling to think that the rest of the world might be interested in that (like the weirdness that someone would actually want to date and marry your sibling... don't they know that said sibling pulled your hair when you were five, and let the dog bury your barbies?). However, it also gave me an interesting insight into my brother and made me appreciate his hobbies and interests a lot more. Particularly, his book made the fascination and peace he gets about deer hunting real to me.
Having said that, I did go through in a lot of places and just go 'nope, you can't say that. Or that.' And with permission I re-wrote quite a few bits. I will openly admit that Dave was great about it, and didn't put any restrictions on me for example by saying that I had to keep any of his particular darlings etc. He was a very easy author to work with.
However, I only got to do one run through, when in fact it needed a structural edit, then a copy edit, and then a proof read. So I feel cautious about saying 'I've edited this!' because while I did a huge amount, I probably took out 90% of the spelling mistakes/typos, but since there were some every few paragraphs, the number remaining will still look like I did a bad job. Oh well, you get what you pay for.
A Lesson in Book PromotionSo when I took over helping to promote Dave's book it was already enrolled in KDP Select, though he hadn't done anything about it and it wasn't being particularly profitable. From my research, the biggest advantage to KDP Select for new authors is the ability to list your book on Amazon for free for a total of 5 days within the 90. (Don't believe their 'amazing global fund', you'll be lucky if you get even a dollar, from my experience.)
As Dave hadn't done anything with this, I still had the full 5 days to play with. So, a few weeks ago I redid his cover to better reflect the genre of the book (best tip on book cover creation I have ever received: the first purpose of the book cover is to immediately reflect the genre of the book so as to attract your target market. Always do some 'market research' by looking up similar books in Amazon and noting stylistic features in that category). After I redid it we put it up for 3 days free. No promotion other than saying on his Facebook page that it was going free. 339 downloads.
Now that is not spectacular for a free promotion (you hear of people who get 45,000 for one promotion, but they usually have something help like being picked up by a ebook reviewer etc. More on that later). However, we thought it was pretty awesome. 339 new people introduced to Dave as an author! Even more probably saw it, but these guys were interested enough to click and download.
The first two days were definitely the most successful, and it had slowed down a lot by the third. I assume it moves off the 'newly listed free' page or something like that. I would recommend starting with a maximum of 2 days, and if it is going well (which will be moving you up some lists) then add an extra day or two.
However, we haven't appeared to receive any extra reviews from that, which was our big hope.
This Time Around:Well, as we did so well last time, and Dave's KDP select enrolment period was ending this weekend, I decided I would upload the revised version on Thursday and then have Friday and Saturday as free promotion. Further, I was a good, hard-working girl and found all the places that you could promote your ebook for free. Okay, so there are hundreds of places. Therefore, I then narrowed it down to the ones that seemed most recommended, and I gave them a week's notice, and ended up submitting Dave's book to literally about 50 sites (give or take a few). Though, quite a few of the sites you can submit for free, but if you want a guaranteed listing you need to pay, which I didn't do.
I then tweeted and Facebooked, and sent an email to The Five Day Writer's free ebook list (sign up on the sidebar if you are interested in getting free review copies of the books I help bring out!). And then collapsed into bed and waited for the numbers to surge.
You want to know the end result? 210. Yup, absolutely no difference to when we didn't do anything at all! In fact, in the first two days of the last promotion we had more free downloads. I could have cried.
Conclusion?In the future, I would still go through with it all just for the off chance that it might be picked up. I did wonder whether the product description could have used more work (I've now updated it to something more snappy), and also the book is REALLY hard to place genre-wise, because who does social commentary wrapped up in romance, architecture and deer hunting? The romance isn't actually fulfilled until the next book, so it won't appeal to the pure romantics, not sure many people read fiction books about architecture (maybe kids, they love Bob the Builder), and while the deer hunting scenes are fantastic, there are only two and they are towards the end of the book, so people interested in guns have to wade through 2/3 about the girl and building houses. What would you market that as?The other problem is that I think a few of the sites downloaded a version of it to have a look at before I had uploaded the new revised edition, so might have not promoted it because of that.
So:- product description really, really important. Do not just whack something up and hope it works. - free promotion still good if you have no readership, because there are now almost 500 people who have Dave's book who had never heard of him before. - plan your promotion in advance, and decide whether you are going to put some money into it. (It was usually $10 per site for guaranteed inclusion).- please, please, please: write to a market! If you want to sell your book on everything, you are welcome to, but it is really hard to promote. - enjoy the free downloads, but don't count on it going viral. Even after putting in a lot of work, there is still a lot of chance involved. - KDP select: make sure you use the free promotion if you are going to enroll. I didn't use it for The Five Day Writer, because I also wanted to sell it on my site, but I think for my next book I might try it, now that I have other things on Amazon they can buy as well if they like my book.
ROW 80 Check-In:
In recap, my goals for last week were:
1. Write up everything I want to change/add to improve A Little Bit of Leaven.
2. Create a Print On Demand version of 'The Five Day Writer's Retreat'.
3. Finish editing 'Tom Grafton Vs. The Environmentalists'.
4. Organise my first writing intensive workshop!
How did I go with that?We will just overlook number 1. It is scheduled in for another month now.
2. Done! It took a while longer than it should have because I perfectly formatted it... to the wrong trim size! (in that I hadn't done it to any trim size.) However, the proof copy will arrive for me on the 4th of September. I'll get to hold my very own book. Yes, am ridiculously excited about this, regardless of it being self-published. So mid-September it should be available worldwide for print on demand. Would make a great Christmas present for friends who are writers... just saying :D
3. Well, I think I've said enough about that.
4. I sat down and worked out the schedule for the intensive, emailed the first person who was interested, updated my websites, particularly www.thefivedaywriter.com to have all the information, and started to contact accommodation in the area to see if they would offer a discount to my guests. The schedule is up on The Five Day Writer, and I have to admit, it looks pretty fun, if I do say so myself. I'm now trying to work out where to advertise in order to get more guests, which is pretty exciting.
If any of you are interested in coming, I could be tempted to offer a 100FD special to my first intensive, as a Thank You for all your support. Or if you know someone who would be free and interested, I could do mates-rates.
Details: Friday 25th Oct 8pm - Sunday 27th 2pm, in Woodend, which is 50 minutes north-west of Melbourne. Topic: The Fundamentals of Self-Publishing. Current cost is $250 for the weekend, including meals but not including accommodation. It is going to be a really relaxed, intimate weekend where you get to talk about your writing and authorship dreams.
Give me a buzz at bufy@thefivedaywriter.com if you're interested!
So, anyone got any KDP select free promotion success stories? Any advice?
August 11, 2013
The Importance of Editing and ROW 80 Check-In
One of the best things about now being dedicated to writing is that I can attend as many writing conferences and workshops as I like/can afford. And I have taken this opportunity and gone overboard!
I attended one conference a few weekends ago, another this weekend, have been accepted as a volunteer for the Melbourne Writer's Festival (so get to go to all main events for free, which I plan to take advantage of) and then another Christian writer's conference in Brisbane in October.
Further, I think God might be trying to give me a subtly hint, as the two workshops I have attended recently have emphasised different aspects of editing.
Winter Writer's Workshop:
A few weekends' ago I was at the Winter Writer's Workshop, which featured Damon Young (who does more academic and literary writing, but has a fantastic voice that you could just listen to for ages), Jo Case who wrote a memoir about when she found out her son had autism (and was involved in the Australian writing scene a lot before that), and my favourite, Kate Forsyth (fantasy writer who I saw last year. I even did one of my very first posts on her method of creating flow. Vintage 100FD!)
If you are in Australia, and ever see a course run by Kate (she does quite a few, particularly in Sydney, where she lives. I'm currently contemplating whether to fly up for one), I highly recommend them. She has such a gift for breaking down the writing process and actually teaching you tools that will help you to critically approach your writing and improve it. Her advice on structure and pacing is fantastic.
One thought she raised that I want to share with you is about editing. A lot of writers (me included at times) think that they do the creative process of getting the rough draft, and then someone else can do the boring part of editing. Kate is completely against this. As a writer, the editing process is still your responsibility, and makes you a stronger writer. I have now come to completely agree with her. The process of analysing your own writing and determining whether you have used the most effective tools to get your meaning across is how you learn and develop. It also allows you to put a stronger personal voice on it, rather than having more of someone else's style in your writing. So, learn to edit! (but also always get someone else to have a look, after you have done your very best.)
Melbourne Word Writer's Intensive:
This weekend I was offered a very special opportunity. The Word Writers, a Christian writing group focused on promoting Australian Christian Writers (yes, they exist, and all of the ones I've met so far as awesome), had an intensive editing workshop on Friday and then a conference on Saturday.
The intensive editing workshop was amazing. I sent in the first chapter of my manuscript. (Sally Hunt, as the appraisal from the competition said it needed a lot of editing, though I've still been short listed, yah!) About a week ago I received in depth commentary back on that from Mary Hawkins, an Australian romance writer (both Christian and mainstream - her first published books were by Mills and Boon, which is funny for a minister's wife :D ). However, she then requested the rest of the manuscript, just to see what the appraiser meant by certain comments, so I sent that through.
I turned up on Friday and she had gone through my entire manuscript and made comments! It was not as in depth as the first chapter, but it made so much sense. I have to admit, there had been comments by the appraiser which I was like 'where have I done that? What does she mean by that?' But when I saw the parts that Mary had highlighted, and her suggestions, there was an 'Oh, that bit... right....' moment or two.
My biggest problem was point of view. I know when editing other people's work to look out for point of view, but in my own work some of my 'darlings' were witty things I had said as the narrator which were outside of the point of view I should have been in. So, time to be humble and fix those up. I spent the day editing away, and then a large part of the night as well, and I'm still about halfway through. I have also re-written my climax scene (it was theologically controversial how I had presented it). I am so much happier with my manuscript and feel I've lifted it to another level. I'll also remember in future when writing to keep tight control on my internal camera.
So all I can say is that new writer or old, you need someone else who will critically look at your manuscript. It can take it to a new level, and teach you things about your own writing style that will help you in the future.
ROW80 Check-In:
I haven't checked in for a while, and my goals were particularly for that week. However, I have managed to get some things done, but probably not as much as I like.
Overall, I now have 4 of Dave's short stories out (two hunting ones and two military adventure), all on Smashwords and 3 of which are on Amazon. (Two are on Smashwords for free, and I feel bad about putting them on Amazon for 99c when you can get them for free. So have listed one on Amazon and advised them it can be purchased cheaper elsewhere, will see if they match it.) If you get a copy, a short review would be really appreciated.
I have also finished the initial edit of 'A Little Bit of Leaven', the story my great-grandfather wrote. It's strange because it's not thrilling, suspenseful, romantic etc., but after every session I just felt really peaceful and comforted. Then in the last part I was almost in tears, in a good way. I am excited about what to do, but also a bit fearful that I won't do it justice. But better than it being hidden away!
So, my goals for this week:
1. Write up everything I want to change/add to improve A Little Bit of Leaven.
2. Create a Print On Demand version of 'The Five Day Writer's Retreat'. Have done most of the cover, just struggling with a gripping blurb. Then I just need to reformat the document to print properly. Going to be testing out CreateSpace.
3. Finish editing 'Tom Grafton Vs. The Environmentalists'. Meant to do this last week, but instead got the two military short stories out for Dave.
4. Organise my first writing intensive workshop! This is pretty exciting. At the Christian writer's conference people were asking about self-publishing, so I mentioned that I had started a company helping authors self-publish by offering whatever services they need to complement their skills. One lady was really interested and asked if I could help her. I mentioned to her that I was running a workshop through my local community centre on 'An Intro to Self-Publishing'. She was very excited, but lives about 3 hours away from me. She asked if I could run a weekend intensive on the topic? Thinking about it overnight, I came back the next day and said Yes!
So, end of October, The Five Day Writer is going to run its first weekend intensive on 'What's Involved In Self-Publishing'. It will cover all the steps and what you need to know to complete each one. It won't be as practical as my 7 week course through the Woodend Community Centre, as there is just not enough time to walk everyone through setting up their author pages, etc. But it will show you where to go, what to do, and how to find the help you need.
I'm very excited about that, but also a little bit scared. I at least have two people already prepared to come (my aunt said she would come as well), and my little sister has agreed to help me with the catering. My parents will be travelling and said I can use their gorgeous American Colonial house in the country to host it. It will be an intimate group in comfortable chairs around a fire, eating, chatting, passionate about writing.
So, if you know of anyone interested in self-publishing who lives in or around Melbourne, point them my way!
What questions would you want answered about self-publishing?
I attended one conference a few weekends ago, another this weekend, have been accepted as a volunteer for the Melbourne Writer's Festival (so get to go to all main events for free, which I plan to take advantage of) and then another Christian writer's conference in Brisbane in October.
Further, I think God might be trying to give me a subtly hint, as the two workshops I have attended recently have emphasised different aspects of editing.
Winter Writer's Workshop:
A few weekends' ago I was at the Winter Writer's Workshop, which featured Damon Young (who does more academic and literary writing, but has a fantastic voice that you could just listen to for ages), Jo Case who wrote a memoir about when she found out her son had autism (and was involved in the Australian writing scene a lot before that), and my favourite, Kate Forsyth (fantasy writer who I saw last year. I even did one of my very first posts on her method of creating flow. Vintage 100FD!)
If you are in Australia, and ever see a course run by Kate (she does quite a few, particularly in Sydney, where she lives. I'm currently contemplating whether to fly up for one), I highly recommend them. She has such a gift for breaking down the writing process and actually teaching you tools that will help you to critically approach your writing and improve it. Her advice on structure and pacing is fantastic.
One thought she raised that I want to share with you is about editing. A lot of writers (me included at times) think that they do the creative process of getting the rough draft, and then someone else can do the boring part of editing. Kate is completely against this. As a writer, the editing process is still your responsibility, and makes you a stronger writer. I have now come to completely agree with her. The process of analysing your own writing and determining whether you have used the most effective tools to get your meaning across is how you learn and develop. It also allows you to put a stronger personal voice on it, rather than having more of someone else's style in your writing. So, learn to edit! (but also always get someone else to have a look, after you have done your very best.)
Melbourne Word Writer's Intensive:
This weekend I was offered a very special opportunity. The Word Writers, a Christian writing group focused on promoting Australian Christian Writers (yes, they exist, and all of the ones I've met so far as awesome), had an intensive editing workshop on Friday and then a conference on Saturday.
The intensive editing workshop was amazing. I sent in the first chapter of my manuscript. (Sally Hunt, as the appraisal from the competition said it needed a lot of editing, though I've still been short listed, yah!) About a week ago I received in depth commentary back on that from Mary Hawkins, an Australian romance writer (both Christian and mainstream - her first published books were by Mills and Boon, which is funny for a minister's wife :D ). However, she then requested the rest of the manuscript, just to see what the appraiser meant by certain comments, so I sent that through.
I turned up on Friday and she had gone through my entire manuscript and made comments! It was not as in depth as the first chapter, but it made so much sense. I have to admit, there had been comments by the appraiser which I was like 'where have I done that? What does she mean by that?' But when I saw the parts that Mary had highlighted, and her suggestions, there was an 'Oh, that bit... right....' moment or two.
My biggest problem was point of view. I know when editing other people's work to look out for point of view, but in my own work some of my 'darlings' were witty things I had said as the narrator which were outside of the point of view I should have been in. So, time to be humble and fix those up. I spent the day editing away, and then a large part of the night as well, and I'm still about halfway through. I have also re-written my climax scene (it was theologically controversial how I had presented it). I am so much happier with my manuscript and feel I've lifted it to another level. I'll also remember in future when writing to keep tight control on my internal camera.
So all I can say is that new writer or old, you need someone else who will critically look at your manuscript. It can take it to a new level, and teach you things about your own writing style that will help you in the future.
ROW80 Check-In:
I haven't checked in for a while, and my goals were particularly for that week. However, I have managed to get some things done, but probably not as much as I like.
Overall, I now have 4 of Dave's short stories out (two hunting ones and two military adventure), all on Smashwords and 3 of which are on Amazon. (Two are on Smashwords for free, and I feel bad about putting them on Amazon for 99c when you can get them for free. So have listed one on Amazon and advised them it can be purchased cheaper elsewhere, will see if they match it.) If you get a copy, a short review would be really appreciated.
I have also finished the initial edit of 'A Little Bit of Leaven', the story my great-grandfather wrote. It's strange because it's not thrilling, suspenseful, romantic etc., but after every session I just felt really peaceful and comforted. Then in the last part I was almost in tears, in a good way. I am excited about what to do, but also a bit fearful that I won't do it justice. But better than it being hidden away!
So, my goals for this week:
1. Write up everything I want to change/add to improve A Little Bit of Leaven.
2. Create a Print On Demand version of 'The Five Day Writer's Retreat'. Have done most of the cover, just struggling with a gripping blurb. Then I just need to reformat the document to print properly. Going to be testing out CreateSpace.
3. Finish editing 'Tom Grafton Vs. The Environmentalists'. Meant to do this last week, but instead got the two military short stories out for Dave.
4. Organise my first writing intensive workshop! This is pretty exciting. At the Christian writer's conference people were asking about self-publishing, so I mentioned that I had started a company helping authors self-publish by offering whatever services they need to complement their skills. One lady was really interested and asked if I could help her. I mentioned to her that I was running a workshop through my local community centre on 'An Intro to Self-Publishing'. She was very excited, but lives about 3 hours away from me. She asked if I could run a weekend intensive on the topic? Thinking about it overnight, I came back the next day and said Yes!
So, end of October, The Five Day Writer is going to run its first weekend intensive on 'What's Involved In Self-Publishing'. It will cover all the steps and what you need to know to complete each one. It won't be as practical as my 7 week course through the Woodend Community Centre, as there is just not enough time to walk everyone through setting up their author pages, etc. But it will show you where to go, what to do, and how to find the help you need.
I'm very excited about that, but also a little bit scared. I at least have two people already prepared to come (my aunt said she would come as well), and my little sister has agreed to help me with the catering. My parents will be travelling and said I can use their gorgeous American Colonial house in the country to host it. It will be an intimate group in comfortable chairs around a fire, eating, chatting, passionate about writing.
So, if you know of anyone interested in self-publishing who lives in or around Melbourne, point them my way!
What questions would you want answered about self-publishing?
August 7, 2013
Finding The Best Author Pages on Facebook, And Stealing Their Ideas.
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Following on from my KOP post on how to create a Facebook author page, the next logical step is to find out who is doing it well, and then steal their ideas.
I openly admit that my author page is a work in progress. So, let's travel across the interwebs and find out who out there has some great ideas that can be pilfered.
Now, a lot of webpages out there confuse 'favourite authors' with 'good author page', so we need to try and get past the fact that we love these guys to find one with actual substance other than an already strong following. Not much use for those of us starting from scratch.
I've also found it really difficult to locate people's favourite pages, as if you do a good search there are thousands of articles telling you how to make an author page, but not much looking at some of the best examples out there. But I have done my best.
The Hunger Games:
As much as I hate to admit it, the first great page I came across was for The Hunger Games, because of it's fantastic use of audience participation. But let's break it down a bit further.
Apps: across the top it has photos (not so interesting to me), then 'Read the Book', which if they are offering a free version would be quite interesting. So I click on it and as the page loads, a pop-up (or skin) appears with a giant picture of the book's cover and "Exclusive access to giveways, videos, quizzes, gifts, and more!" plus the social proof that 4million other people (ie. teenage girls) have already liked it. And I can click on the like button just there and be part of all the fun!
Clever, huh? First of all, it didn't come up too early, before I had shown any interest in the page. Then, it waited until I wanted something (free copy of the book), and showed me I could get even more just by clicking 'like'. Finally, it won't actually let me get to the free book unless I do click like (something quite small and effortless, but I'm not actually going to do it because I don't support the view of writing presented in the third book).
Status Updates: Rather than just using their status updates to try and sell the book, they focus very heavily on audience participation with daily questions and quizzes. One particularly clever one (in that it allows the audience to talk about themselves, always a good move) is the update:
“Yesterday we asked you what #Finnick Odair’s weapon of choice was now we want to know, what would be YOUR weapon of choice be in the arena?”
Unsurprisingly, even though it was posted only a few days ago, it has 1,455 comments.
Mary DeMuth
This is actually an author I've never heard about (she appears to be an American Christian author). However, I've given her second place for really focusing on her brand on her Facebook page. The page doesn't appear to deviate into 'what my kid had for breakfast this morning', but offers continued support and tips on her main areas of spiritual healing. Further, she is open and vulnerable to her audience, asking for prayer as well as offering it. She also takes the time to reply to the comments on her page, so there is a real sense of conversation. This is a really good use of Facebook for developing dedicated fans.
Steven King:
This page is interesting not just because he's Steven King and has a trillion books out there and millions of fans. What's interesting is that this facebook page is not actually managed by King at all, but by the publishers. Therefore, it is a great example of how to get interaction when you personally aren't interacting.
It is made up of a lot of quotes from the books with photos to get people thinking. It also includes news articles and other tidbits about King or related to his books to give it a feel that you are learning more about the man.
And Just To Finish Off:
There are a lot of pages about how to write a great author facebook page. So, going through them I've just pulled out some of the status updates which I think are great and can be used by any of us:
From Novel Publicity:
Hello, likers of this Facebook page. What are you doing today? Are you reading anything you think I might enjoy?
Did you know that the protagonist in my first novel eats PlayDoh when he thinks no one is looking? Uh-oh, his love interest just found out! (Or some other fun and intriguing factoid from your novel or WIP)
I don’t want to talk about books today. Let’s talk about… Dogs! I have a super rambunctious and totally adorable Golden Retriever puppy named Polo. Any other dog people out there? Tell me about your pooch. We can compare notes!
From Author Media:
Use a 'fill in the blank' status update.
Great advice from an interview with Miles Daniels:
Think of it as an 80/20 rule. 80 percent of your wall postings should add value and build loyalty with your fans. Share tidbits, interesting ideas, free writing tips, and other no-strings-attached content. Use the other 20 percent to promote yourself and your book. Include your book signings under events. Post reviews and articles as links. Add pictures of you and your fans.
I know that there must be other great Facebook Pages out there, but it is really hard to find them. Anyone got any suggestions?
Following on from my KOP post on how to create a Facebook author page, the next logical step is to find out who is doing it well, and then steal their ideas.
I openly admit that my author page is a work in progress. So, let's travel across the interwebs and find out who out there has some great ideas that can be pilfered.
Now, a lot of webpages out there confuse 'favourite authors' with 'good author page', so we need to try and get past the fact that we love these guys to find one with actual substance other than an already strong following. Not much use for those of us starting from scratch.
I've also found it really difficult to locate people's favourite pages, as if you do a good search there are thousands of articles telling you how to make an author page, but not much looking at some of the best examples out there. But I have done my best.
The Hunger Games:
As much as I hate to admit it, the first great page I came across was for The Hunger Games, because of it's fantastic use of audience participation. But let's break it down a bit further.
Apps: across the top it has photos (not so interesting to me), then 'Read the Book', which if they are offering a free version would be quite interesting. So I click on it and as the page loads, a pop-up (or skin) appears with a giant picture of the book's cover and "Exclusive access to giveways, videos, quizzes, gifts, and more!" plus the social proof that 4million other people (ie. teenage girls) have already liked it. And I can click on the like button just there and be part of all the fun!
Clever, huh? First of all, it didn't come up too early, before I had shown any interest in the page. Then, it waited until I wanted something (free copy of the book), and showed me I could get even more just by clicking 'like'. Finally, it won't actually let me get to the free book unless I do click like (something quite small and effortless, but I'm not actually going to do it because I don't support the view of writing presented in the third book).
Status Updates: Rather than just using their status updates to try and sell the book, they focus very heavily on audience participation with daily questions and quizzes. One particularly clever one (in that it allows the audience to talk about themselves, always a good move) is the update:
“Yesterday we asked you what #Finnick Odair’s weapon of choice was now we want to know, what would be YOUR weapon of choice be in the arena?”
Unsurprisingly, even though it was posted only a few days ago, it has 1,455 comments.
Mary DeMuth
This is actually an author I've never heard about (she appears to be an American Christian author). However, I've given her second place for really focusing on her brand on her Facebook page. The page doesn't appear to deviate into 'what my kid had for breakfast this morning', but offers continued support and tips on her main areas of spiritual healing. Further, she is open and vulnerable to her audience, asking for prayer as well as offering it. She also takes the time to reply to the comments on her page, so there is a real sense of conversation. This is a really good use of Facebook for developing dedicated fans.
Steven King:
This page is interesting not just because he's Steven King and has a trillion books out there and millions of fans. What's interesting is that this facebook page is not actually managed by King at all, but by the publishers. Therefore, it is a great example of how to get interaction when you personally aren't interacting.
It is made up of a lot of quotes from the books with photos to get people thinking. It also includes news articles and other tidbits about King or related to his books to give it a feel that you are learning more about the man.
And Just To Finish Off:
There are a lot of pages about how to write a great author facebook page. So, going through them I've just pulled out some of the status updates which I think are great and can be used by any of us:
From Novel Publicity:
Hello, likers of this Facebook page. What are you doing today? Are you reading anything you think I might enjoy?
Did you know that the protagonist in my first novel eats PlayDoh when he thinks no one is looking? Uh-oh, his love interest just found out! (Or some other fun and intriguing factoid from your novel or WIP)
I don’t want to talk about books today. Let’s talk about… Dogs! I have a super rambunctious and totally adorable Golden Retriever puppy named Polo. Any other dog people out there? Tell me about your pooch. We can compare notes!
From Author Media:
Use a 'fill in the blank' status update.
Great advice from an interview with Miles Daniels:
Think of it as an 80/20 rule. 80 percent of your wall postings should add value and build loyalty with your fans. Share tidbits, interesting ideas, free writing tips, and other no-strings-attached content. Use the other 20 percent to promote yourself and your book. Include your book signings under events. Post reviews and articles as links. Add pictures of you and your fans.
I know that there must be other great Facebook Pages out there, but it is really hard to find them. Anyone got any suggestions?
