Rani Divine's Blog, page 37

Ticketed

If you’re wanting to get something a little more interactive for your writer friend, then this gift option is for you! We super enjoy going to these things, and we’d enjoy it even more with a friend by our sides. So if you can put up with us for long enough, this just might be the… ticket.
Tickets to a Writer Conference
Doesn’t even matter when it is. It could be next fall for all we care. We just want to know that you thought of us enough to get us tickets to this conference where we can go and learn about our craft from some of the best in the business.
Most of us don’t get to go to things like this, because we don’t feel like spending the money to get ourselves the tickets or we haven't convinced ourselves to make the time for it. Instead we sit and dream about it, think about what it would be like to go to a conference like that and be surrounded by people who do what we do. But for some reason, a lot of us won’t spend the money on something like this.
I honestly don’t know why that is.
The thing with this gift is, if you’re going to get it for us, you really ought to come with us. We would enjoy it a lot more that way, knowing that we have a friend with us. You remember how we’re generally pretty introverted? That means we can have trouble talking to other people at big conferences. But having a friend with us boosts our confidence and, let’s face it, just makes things a lot more fun.
Now, I’m sure you’d like me to tell you what conference you should get tickets to, but I really can’t do that. It depends on where you’re from, what kind of writing your friend does, and how much time they can spare. It’s something you’ll have to put some research into, but I guarantee you that nearly every big city has a writer conference or book fair at least every other year. Albuquerque has two, from what I understand.
You’re nearly guaranteed to have some great options in your state, especially if you’re willing to drive somewhere for the conference. And if you’ve gotten us the tickets, we’ll make a way to get there. We will.
Remember, this is something we’ve all thought about doing, though most of us haven’t gotten around to going.
Myself included, in case you were wondering. But that’s another story altogether.
[love]
{RD}

Words

If you haven’t finished your Christmas shopping yet, you’re fast running out of time! Only a few more days before the holiday in question… so what are you going to get for that writer friend of yours?
I have three more things for you to consider, all week long. 
This one is the most obvious one, but I felt that it should be mentioned. It’s the thing that we like the most, because not only is it the thing that we do, but it’s the thing that we… well, do. It’s what we do, okay? That’s why you should get this for us.
Books.
Yeah. Told you it was obvious.
But you might be saying that your writer friend already has a mass of books, and that you wouldn’t know what ones to get them. I agree, that can be a problem. Many of my writer friends tends to amass so many books that they wouldn’t even know if they had duplicates of some things. It can get to the point of hoarding. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t encourage it or enlarge it by buying us more books.
Here’s what you do:
What genre does your writer friend write in? Don’t buy them things from that genre. They probably already have their favorites and already know what they really like from that group. So find something in a different genre, perhaps something that appeals to you or that you read and thought they might enjoy.
And here’s the thing most people don’t consider:
Research books are awesome! We like nonfiction, even when we write fiction. We really do. Nonfiction helps us do the research we need to do for our own writing. So in that time that we talk to you about the things we’re writing, jot down some notes and see if you can find us something to help fill the knowledge gaps. After all, we can’t know everything.

Really, buy us books. We like books. A lot. Maybe too much. But buy us books anyway. We’re going to get them whether you buy them for us or not. But this way you have something fun to get us for Christmas. And if you write a little note on the first page, we’ll always remember that the book came from you. That’ll be even cooler.
Seriously. Buy us books.
[love]
{Rani D.}

Bulk

Out of all the things I've picked to write about for this series, this is the one I really like people to get me, and the one I also really enjoy giving. 
It's also the one that will cost you a little more. But it’ll be worth it in the long run, I swear. It’s something that we all hope for, that we writers all imagine will happen someday, and on the rare occasions that someone actually does it, our hearts soar.
Buy their book, in bulk, and give copies to everyone you know (whether they read or not).
I’ve actually gotten to do this for some of my friends, and you should’ve seen the looks on their faces! I so enjoy doing this, especially for new writers who have only just gotten their work on the market. Which, honestly, is what most of us are these days. We’re all newbies, and we all need some support.
That’s what this is all about.
Writers all daydream about someone coming to an event of ours, buying a dozen books, and having them signed for different people. It means that this person really liked our book, that they liked it enough that they’re going to give it as a gift to as many people as they can.
How cool is that?
We’ve all thought about it, about some person with moneybags coming in and buying every last copy we have. But you don’t have to be that. You can buy three copies, buy five, buy as many as you can, and give them away to friends and family of yours, people who don’t reach your writer friend’s circle of influence. People who wouldn’t even know who this writer was, if it weren’t for you. Talk the book up, mention how awesome it is that you know this person, this soon-to-be-famous writer (even if none of us think we’ll ever be famous).
Make us feel like a star. That’s what buying in bulk does. We feel awesome when it happens, and we hold onto that feeling as long as we possibly can. Wouldn’t you like to be the person who makes us feel that way, who shows us that we’re so cool that someone would actually come to an event of ours and ask for five copies of our book, to give away?
I do. It’s so much fun, I swear. I know I’m a weeper, but I really end up in tears seeing the pure joy on a writer’s face, when I come over with a hundred dollars and ask how many copies I can get with this one bill.
It’s awesome.
And it’d make an epic Christmas present.
[love]
{Rani Divine}
P.S. For those of you who are poets, writers, and artists, don't forget that the Mavguard submissions window closes soon! You only have until the end of the month to get your work in, so head to www.MavguardMagazine.com NOW! :)

Positivity

For some writers, it’s not even really about getting us a gift. Like last time, for a lot of us, we just really want to have some time to hang out with you. Just you.
This time though, it’s a little more close to home. This is something that for some reason, we have a hard time getting people to do. Even our closest friends and family don’t want to do it, find themselves far too busy to go online and do this one simple thing for us, to help us out.
Read their book, and review it. Positively.
One of the greatest things anyone can give a writer is a positive review of their work. Critique is okay too, but as our friend, please don’t harshly critique our already released work, especially publicly. If there’s a problem with a story and you happen to have been a beta reader, tell us about the problem before it’s about to be released. Give us time to fix it. And when it is released, read it. Then go online and leave as many reviews as you can on as many sites as you can.
I know, it sounds a little weird that this would be a Christmas present, but honestly thought out gifts are like that.
Writers want their work to shine. We all do. We want people to read our work and see it for what we meant it to be. You going online and leaving ten reviews is like opening up your wallet and giving us a million dollars on the spot. We’re so grateful, so thankful, both that you read the book and that you were kind and generous enough to go online and leave reviews.
Everyone does this. We go online and read the reviews before we’ll buy anything. So then, why don’t you want to write reviews of your friend’s work? Don’t you want us to make more sales, to have people across the world reading our work? It’s what we want, you know. And you should be the ones backing us up.
You have no excuses. I know you think you do, because I’ve heard a lot of them. But you really don’t have any at all.
You read their book already, didn’t you?
If you haven’t, you really should.
And if you haven’t left a review somewhere, go do it. Write a different review for each site, an honest and positive review about the book, and show us. Tell us that’s our Christmas present.
I promise, it’ll be better in our eyes than most of the things you’ve thought of thus far.
[love]
{Rani D.}

Be Friendly

Last week, in our discussion on what to get for writers, I picked three things that I really enjoy getting as Christmas gifts, and talked about getting them for other writers. This week, I have another idea. Here I’m going to talk about three things that are simply touching, and might not require as much attention to what we specifically like to read, what programs we use on our computers, or what utensils we like to write with.
To start things off, the simplest of them all:
Company
It’s no secret that many writers are introverted. There’s really nothing you can do to change that. But you know what introverts really enjoy?
One-on-one time. 
We like that personal connection with people, that time to sit with someone and really enjoy their company, and we don’t get that a lot. Most events we get invited to, we don’t want to go to—mostly because there will be so many people there that we’ll find ourselves utterly overstimulated, with no way to resolve the problem.
So invite us over for a holiday meal. Let us sit and enjoy our time together, just a few of us. We don’t generally like to go with more than five or six.
Most of all, don’t forget to let us talk about our work.
For a lot of us, writing is our favorite thing to do and our absolute favorite thing to talk about. So when you ask a question like, “other than writing, what have you been up to?” it breaks our heart a little bit. We want to tell you about this awesome new story we’re working on and all the cool things we’ve gotten to do with it. We want to tell you about our craft and how much fun we’ve had in learning about writing and expanding our own minds to allow for new ideas and interesting trains of thought.
Don’t keep us from that.
You want to talk about the things you like, don’t you? So let us do the same. Let us enjoy who we are and what we do, and give us some time to show you all about it.
It’s what we crave, even though a lot of us won’t say it aloud. We like to spend time with you, we like to hear about what you’re doing and what beautiful things you do in your everyday lives, and we want to tell you what happens in ours too.
Friendship is a two way street, especially for an introvert.
[love]
{Rani Divine}

Mag

Happy Friday, everyone! I hope you all have fun weekends ahead of you, and that you’re getting some good ideas of what to get your writer friends for Christmas.
Today, we’re talking about something that I haven’t received in a while, but something that I greatly enjoyed when I did receive it.
Subscriptions to Writing Magazines and/or Literary Magazines
In case it wasn’t obvious enough, writers like writing, and we like reading. We also like reading about writing, because we’re always learning new ways to expand our craft and change the way we view the world around us. Most of us like to learn, and a lot of that comes through more reading. We learned that in school, supposedly.
Anyway, if your writer friend is one that really enjoys learning about writing, or reading short stories and poetry to expand their view of their craft, then this is the gift to get them! Most of us, like I mentioned last time, tend not to spend a lot of money on our craft. That’s why we won’t have a ton of things like this. If we did have a subscription to a literary or writing magazine, we probably let it run out and didn’t renew because we didn’t want to spend the money.
If you’re settled and you want to go with a magazine subscription, I have a couple good recommendations for you:
Poets & Writers
People will argue that it’s not as good as it used to be, and I’d honestly agree, but it’s still a very good resource. It has listings for places where we can submit our work, resources to help us keep writing, and learning techniques for the craft, as well as some fun and useful information many of us wouldn’t have access to without the magazine. They also usually have a holiday deal going on. Woo!
Writer’s Digest
Again, some people will tell you that this one isn’t worth it. I disagree. I’ve learned a lot whenever I’ve had a subscription to Writer’s Digest, and I’ve really enjoyed almost every issue I’ve picked up. There are a plethora of great resources in here, plus an online community where we can connect with other writers. Awesome.
But those two are just for the writer who wants to learn. Some writers just want to read, to learn. We won’t tell you straight out that that’s what we’re doing, but it is. We read a lot because it helps us in our craft. So consider getting your writer friend a subscription to a literary or art magazine. They’re guaranteed to enjoy it! Poets need to read some short stories to help them balance their work, and novelists need to read some poetry and short stories to help them remember to vary their word use. We learn a lot by reading things we wouldn't normally see, which is where a literary magazine comes in handy.
And by the way, next year Mavguard will be rolling out a one to two year subscription plan! So soon, that will be an option for you as well.
Perfect!
[love]
{Rani D.}
P.S. Speaking of Mavguard... Head over to the RAD Blog to check out my Mavguard blog miniseries, every Friday this month!

Scriv It

Okay, so, Christmas presents for writers.
There’s one thing that I bought myself, that I wish someone would’ve thought of getting for me much, much sooner. See, I write a lot. In those days, I was writing about 4,000 words every day, and it was getting very confusing to keep track of everything that I’d written, because everything was in separate Word documents, ones that even I in my near infinite amount of organization couldn’t keep track of.
And then it happened. One day, I was talking to a friend of mine, a writer friend, who mentioned a software she’d found.
It was called…
Scrivener
After doing my research and deciding that extra organization could never be a bad thing, I jumped the gun and downloaded myself a copy of the software. It’s not expensive, but for writers, we for some reason tend not to want to spend money on things like software. I honestly don’t understand it.
I seriously geek out over this software. I recommend it to every writer who crosses my path, even though I know most of them won’t heed my advice. They think they’re content in their current software, that they’re happy with what they have and don’t want to switch. But believe me when I say that they’re wrong.
I’ll say it again: I wish someone had thought to buy me this software, long before I got it for myself.
Scrivener is essentially the ultimate writing tool for your computer. It organizes books into chapters and scenes to keep everything easier for us, the writers, to understand, while keeping every for one novel inside one neat Scrivener file. And it makes the editing process a million times easier by doing so.
In all honesty, if I tried to go back to Word now, I don’t think I would make it. I still use Word for editing, because it has a far greater processor when it comes to spell check and a few other conveniences, but every time I write, I write in Scrivener.
Every writer I know who’s tried it, would agree with me.
So make a teeny tiny splurge and get them a license of Scrivener. Show them that you care about their writing, by giving them something to advance their work.
Trust me, we’ll appreciate how much thought you put into the thing we so enjoy doing.
[love]
{Rani Divine}

I want a...

Oh sheesh, it’s December… I suppose that means most of you are scrambling to figure out what presents to get for your loved ones. 
Me? I’m already done with all that. Everything’s even wrapped and under the tree! But I’m an early bird, and this series is designed for the rest of you. And since I know not all of you will actually be giving out every last present before the end of the month (me and my bestie often exchange gifts at the New Year), it’ll go through the whole month!
What on earth should I get a writer for Christmas?!
Yup. That’s our topic. I’ve thought of nine things you could (or maybe should) get for the writers in your life. We’re really not that hard to shop for, when you think about it. Or maybe it’s that I’m a writer, and I know what we like.
Today’s item:
Writing Utensils
Yeah, that one probably seems obvious, but that’s why I did it as number one. See, no one ever thinks of the cooler writing utensils. They think “oh, but we all write on computers now, so what’s the point?” or “but my friend only uses this kind of pen,” when really, we should be thinking of different writing utensils.
So here are three great options of writing utensils, all of which I would be glad to receive:
Pens with red ink
Yes, this one is the most boring option. But it's also the one we're most likely to use. We all dreaded them in school, but as writers, it’s one of the things we need most often. Once we’ve gotten our first draft down, we always have to go back and cut out a lot of what we just wrote, make changes, edit for clarity—and that begins with red ink. A lot of us prefer to print out our work and go through it by hand, which is where these pens really come in handy. Personally, I prefer Sharpie Pens, but I’d be content with most any red inked pen.
Quill/Dip/Calligraphy Pens
Many of us, if not most of us, do occasionally write by hand. These pens help to facilitate that. They allow us to play with fonts by hand, to get our hands messy with a bottle of ink, to see what it would’ve been like to write way back in the day. Even if we don’t use them, they’re a great inspiration for us just to own. I have a couple dip and calligraphy pens, and I primarily use them as display items, but in those times when I need inspiration, they do come in handy. Include a bottle or two of ink, and we'll be even happier!
Fountain Pens
Lastly, every writer needs a fountain pen. Though really, I think every person needs a fountain pen. It conforms to the way you write, so once you’ve used it enough your nib will only be usable by you. Trust me. I hold my hand weirdly when I write and no one else in my family can use my fountain pens. If you’re looking for a good brand to check out, I was recently gifted a Graf von Faber-Castell, and it’s spectacular. Monte Blanc is as well. Of course, those are the higher end of fountain pens, and much of what you’ll find on Amazon are decent options. Just read the reviews and trust your judgment. And don't forget to pick up a bottle of ink as well.

And those are my three top writing utensils for writers. They’re all ones that I use not infrequently, if only to look at and admire, and I can tell you I was utterly thrilled when I received each of them, because yes, they were all gifts.
Isn’t Christmas great?
[love]
{Rani D.}

December is here

Well, it’s no longer November. December had to come eventually, didn’t it? And I hope that with the beginning of December comes the news that you’ve finished your novel. I sincerely do. And if you have, please, let me know! I would love to celebrate with you! It’s a great accomplishment to finish a novel, no matter how many you’ve written before.
Yeah, that’s our topic for today. I think I’m a good voice for the topic, being that I’ve written fourteen novels so far.
When you finish your first novel, there’s this sense of relief, euphoria, bliss that you’ve finally done it, that your first novel is complete and there on the metaphorical shelf (unless you’re cool enough to print it, which I never was). It’s an awesome feeling! Honestly, sometimes, I miss it. People are excited for you, you get hugs and high fives, and everyone gathers around you to cheer over this great accomplishment.
Who wouldn’t love that?
But it changes when you get to your second novel, or your fifth, or your fourteenth. I would know.
When I finished my second novel, I remember the first thing one of my friends said, the same friend who’d congratulated me and celebrated with me when I’d finished my first. She said, and I quote: “Oh. That’s cool.” No excitement, no celebration, no joy. It was mundane, now that I’d already struggled my way through one novel. Well, you’ve done it once, who cares if you do it again? That was how I felt.
That shouldn’t be.
There’s an usher at my church who reminds me of that, every time I see him. He’s the one person who always asks me about my writing, always makes sure that I’m still writing, and gives me the same look of unbridled joy when he finds out I’ve finished yet another novel or am starting on a new one. He's that friend that never ceases to be joyful about another friend's accomplishment, and I truly love that about him. 
That, my friends, is how we should be. A book is a book, no matter how many we’ve started or finished. We’re writers, so shouldn’t it always be exciting or euphoric when we finish one? I mean, it’s what we do! It’s what’s in our hearts to do, and we’ve just succeeded at it again! Shouldn’t that be more exciting, that we’ve done it again, that we aren’t a one hit wonder? We can do this, whether it’s our first or our fiftieth. That’s awesome!
So celebrate. If it’s your first or your fifteenth or your fiftieth. Buy a bottle of champagne. Go out with your friends. Celebrate.
You did it. (again)
[love]
{Rani Divine}

To edit or not to edit

Happy Wednesday, everyone!
Just a quick reminder, Albuquerque ladies, Girls Night Out at Sheraton Uptown is tomorrow night at six! I’ll be there with all of my books, as well as some great freebies and the latest edition of Mavguard – come by and pick up some great Christmas presents from some fabulous Albuquerque locals, and share the female pride! Woo!
But for today, it’s still NaNoWriMo, technically, and that means I definitely want to talk about writing… But I’m an editor. You all know that. I primarily think of myself as a writer, but by trade I am an editor. And that’s why you might be surprised by what I have to say today.
Editing is important. So it proofreading. But they’re not the end of the world, if you don’t get around to them.
*gasp*
I know, I’m sure you’re all in shock. Allow me to explain.
See, editing and proofreading are what get a novel to the point of publication, but that’s not always what we’re going for. Yeah, I always say that we create so we can show people, so people will see the beauty we’ve created, but for some of us, that’s not why we’re in this. We’re in this for the joy of it, for the bliss and release of being able to create. I’ll admit, sometimes I feel that way. There are some stories I’ve written for the sheer release of it, for the emotion to get out of my head and onto a page, and I have no intention of ever showing them to anyone in a public fashion. But not all of them are that way.
For some of us, writing is an escape, and nothing more.
For others, it’s a means to an end.
For still others, it’s somewhere in the middle.
But either way, editing, proofreading, they might not always be necessary. For a story that’s never going to see the light of day, who cares? For works that you’re unsure on, why waste the time and effort? But for works that you want to publish, yeah, it should be something that you consider having professionally done.
But I’m going to say it one more time: it’s not the end of the world if you don’t do it. Nowadays, we can publish ourselves very easily and get our works out in the world with little to no effort at all. So if that’s the route you want to go, then don’t bother with professional editing.
For those of you who really want to be seen, who really want to achieve some goal with your writing, it might not be the case. But that’s not everyone, is it? And the others don’t get mentioned nearly enough, methinks. 
Consider yourselves mentioned, folks. Boom. 
[love]
{Rani D.}