Jacqui Murray's Blog, page 180
October 18, 2012
Check out my Article Over at Write Anything
I have an interesting article over on Write Anything entitled If You Don’t Have an Agent, Are You Really a Writer. If you can’t make it–no worries. I’ll post it here soon.
Jacqui Murray is the editor of a K-6 technology curriculum, K-8 keyboard curriculum, creator of two technology training books for middle school and six ebooks on technology in education. She is the author of Building a Midshipman , the story of her daughter’s journey from high school to United States Naval Academy. She is webmaster for six blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice book reviewer, a columnist for Examiner.com , Editorial Review Board member for Journal for Computing Teachers, Cisco guest blog, Technology in Education featured blogger, IMS tech expert, and a bi-weekly contributor to Write Anything. Currently, she’s editing a thriller that should be out to publishers next summer. Contact Jacqui at her writing office or her tech lab, Ask a Tech Teacher.
Filed under: business, writers Tagged: agents, guest post, writers
October 17, 2012
When Do You Follow Writing Rules?
When you start writing, it sounds easy–write what you know. Pour what’s inside you out on the paper and like blowflies to a corpse, readers will find you.
Or go?
What if they don’t come? In fact, that’s usually the case. First, you experience denial, then anger, hate, and finally acceptance (I think I messed up step three): You need to learn more about how to write. You check out popular blogs, join a writers group, go to conferences, buy books by experts, and follow suggestions. Things like:
don’t use passive voice
don’t have too many POV characters
use picture nouns and action verbs
And readers still don’t come.
Which brings us to the topic of this post: When do you follow rules and when do you leap into space without a safety net? I’ve seen many rules crushed to oblivion in print until even the fat lady stopped singing. The one I’m thinking of right now is Point of View. It used to be hard and fast: Don’t head hop. Now, I see it all over the place, in authors I respect and books I’ve given five star ratings as a Vine Voice, even in my capacity as reviewer for other writers’ publicists. It would seem that following rules is as flexible as a politician and his promises.
Here’s what agents and successful writers say about rules:
Albert Zuckerman, in Writing the Blockbuster Novel : “…in fiction as in art, there are no precise rules. If an author is brilliant enough to make his book work and at the same time disregard what is generally accepted as a key element of craft, then it works.”
Noah Lukeman, in the First Five Pages : “Most of the truly great artists have broken all the rules and this is precisely what has made them great. … There are no rules to assure great writing.”
William Noble, Noble’s Book of Writing Blunders : “You can’t allow yourself to be so controlled [by rules] that you shiver and shake when the urge to break them comes.”
Bob Mayer, The Novel Writer’s Toolkit: “Understand these skills [rules], and then use your brilliance to figure out a way to change the technique … to overcome …roadblocks.”
They all agree on the importance of NOT placing ‘rules’ over ‘genius’. If your writing is break-through quality, agents and publishers will embrace your broken rules. It’s a decision unburdened by the facts of what’s publishable and what’s not, oiled by the WD40 of your prose. Who cares that you re-invented the wheel to spin a tale no reader could put down? They will not notice that you used ‘was’ too often or had four adverbs in front of a verb rather than the max of two. You are Hemingway-esque, or the Next Tom Clancy.
But, most of us aren’t that blockbuster writer. We want to write well enough to make a living doing what we love. We’ll take celebrity but settle for survive. How-to-write authors (like the list above) have made fortunes providing that caliber of writer with templates for success replete with rules, regulations, must-do’s and don’t-do’s, because for most of us, the rules matter and following them makes us a better writer.
Here’s what you need to know: Never follow a rule over a cliff.
There is a method to breaking rules. The people who can get away with it are those who:
know the rules and
break them intentionally to further their writing
What’s that mean to you? Study your craft. Read books, take classes, attend seminars. Own it. Then, you can color outside the lines.
Jacqui Murray is the editor of a K-6 technology curriculum, K-8 keyboard curriculum, creator of two technology training books for middle school and six ebooks on technology in education. She is the author of Building a Midshipman , the story of her daughter’s journey from high school to United States Naval Academy. She is webmaster for six blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice book reviewer, a columnist for Examiner.com , Editorial Review Board member for Journal for Computing Teachers, Cisco guest blog, Technology in Education featured blogger, IMS tech expert, and a bi-weekly contributor to Write Anything. Currently, she’s editing a thriller that should be out to publishers next summer. Contact Jacqui at her writing office or her tech lab, Ask a Tech Teacher.
Filed under: writers tips, writing Tagged: rules, writing
October 16, 2012
Tech Tip for Writers #80: My Internet Stopped Working
Tech challenged? Read on
Tech Tips for Writers is an (almost) weekly post on overcoming Tech Dread. I’ll cover issues that friends, both real-time and virtual, have shared. Feel free to post a comment about a question you have. I’ll cover it in a future Tip.
Q:My internet stopped for no reason. I’m in the middle of something important. What can I do?
A: Do what the pros do–unplug it, wait ten seconds and plug it in again. Half the time, this is all it takes.
The same applies to a printer that stops for no known reason–turn it off, wait ten seconds and turn it back on.
It’s something about tasks being shuffled out of the way and needing to re-establish their order. All I know is it works often enough, it’s my first line of defense to problem-solving this particular problem.
Jacqui Murray is the editor of a K-6 technology curriculum, K-8 keyboard curriculum, creator of two technology training books for middle school and six ebooks on technology in education. She is the author of Building a Midshipman , the story of her daughter’s journey from high school to United States Naval Academy. She is webmaster for six blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice book reviewer, a columnist for Examiner.com , Editorial Review Board member for Journal for Computing Teachers, Cisco guest blog, Technology in Education featured blogger, IMS tech expert, and a bi-weekly contributor to Write Anything. Currently, she’s editing a thriller that should be out to publishers next summer. Contact Jacqui at her writing office or her tech lab, Ask a Tech Teacher.
Filed under: tech tips for writers Tagged: internet, writers tips, writing
October 15, 2012
Writer’s Tip #23: The Use of ‘Lay’
When you read your story, does it sound off, maybe you can’t quite put your finger on it, but you know you’ve done something wrong? Sometimes–maybe even lots of times–there are simple fixes. These writer’s tips will come at you once a week, giving you plenty of time to go through your story and make the adjustments.
Today’s tip: How to use the word ‘lay’
Here’s the rule for the use of ‘lay’:
‘Lay’ is a transitive verb that means ‘place or put’. Lie is an intransitive verb meaning ‘rest on a surface’. One is active, the other, passive. A hen may lay an egg, but you lie down. (Elements of Style, Strunk and White)
The verb “to lay” must ALWAYS have a direct object (a noun that receives the action of the verb)
EXAMPLE: I lay the papers on the desk. Papers is the direct object of the verb LAY. Any time a form of the verb LAY is used, it must have a direct object.
For more on the lay-lie controversy, check out Grammar Girl.
To have these tips delivered to your email, click here.
Jacqui Murray is the editor of a K-6 technology curriculum, K-8 keyboard curriculum, creator of two technology training books for middle school and six ebooks on technology in education. She is the author of Building a Midshipman , the story of her daughter’s journey from high school to United States Naval Academy. She is webmaster for six blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice book reviewer, a columnist for Examiner.com , Editorial Review Board member for Journal for Computing Teachers, Cisco guest blog, Technology in Education featured blogger, IMS tech expert, and a bi-weekly contributor to Write Anything. Currently, she’s editing a thriller that should be out to publishers next summer. Contact Jacqui at her writing office or her tech lab, Ask a Tech Teacher.
Filed under: grammar and spelling, language, writers tips Tagged: lay vs lie, writers tips
October 12, 2012
Book Review: 12-21
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Part of my Amazon Vine Reviews
From the Prologue to the final spellbinding pages, Dustin Thomason’s 12-21 (Random House 2012) is a page-turner. Within five minutes, the reader is locked in the grasp of two seemingly unrelated stories, told in tandem throughout the novel. Each new twist wraps them tighter together until the plot is a Gordian knot that will take all of the brilliance of the story’s main characters to unravel.
Gabriel Stanton, an unhappily divorced workaholic, runs a prion research facility. Its initial goal, now fallen into disrepute, is to find a cure for prion viruses–a particular strain of virus that has no known treatment. When he is called to consult on a patient who could be suffering from his specialty, he must not only come up with a therapy–something funding cuts and bureaucracy have prevented him doing since the center opened–but convince the CDC that the solution is to be found in the collapse of a booming Mayan city almost a thousand years ago. He gets assistance from a Mayan archaeological expert–Chel Manu–who comes into possession of a codex which the pair determine holds the treatment key. The trick is to decode it and then understand it through the lens of the long-dead heroes who wrote it–before life as they know it ends.
Which seems to be December 21st, a day predicted by in Mayan scripture.
The plot is an intriguing blend of science, history and the best elements of the thriller genre (heroic main characters, noble intentions–that sort of stuff).
Thomason has a wonderful knack for etching a character with a few well-placed words. Within sentences of the story’s beginning, we see Stanton’s flaws, humanity, decency, and brilliance. He does it within the plot lines via dialogue and action in ways any aspiring writer wishes s/he could do as succinctly and effective.
Sounds amazing, doesn’t it? You ask: Why the four stars? Two reasons:
that Chel comes into possession of the codex that can cure the disease is hard to swallow. It traveled from Guatemala to her front door. Thomason provides rationale, but really?
the Zero Patient for the modern-day prion epidemic just happens to come from the Guatemalan home town of Chel’s family. Again, really?
Coincidences always weaken a story, so I had to ignore these and continue.
Which I did, right up to the feel-good ending. My conclusion: I’m going to keep reading Dustin Thomason
Jacqui Murray is the editor of a K-6 technology curriculum, K-8 keyboard curriculum, creator of two technology training books for middle school and six ebooks on technology in education. She is the author of Building a Midshipman , the story of her daughter’s journey from high school to United States Naval Academy. She is webmaster for six blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice book reviewer, a columnist for Examiner.com , Editorial Review Board member for Journal for Computing Teachers, Cisco guest blog, Technology in Education featured blogger, IMS tech expert, and a bi-weekly contributor to Write Anything. Currently, she’s editing a thriller that should be out to publishers next summer. Contact Jacqui at her writing office or her tech lab, Ask a Tech Teacher.
Filed under: book reviews, thrillers Tagged: 12-21, book review
October 10, 2012
17 Tips on How to Market Your Books Online
Photo credit: Public domain pictures
I have experimented with online book marketing over the past few years with mixed results. When I heard about a seminar on this topic in my Poynter’s Newsletter, I decided it was time to hear what the professionals had to say.
Just to be clear, prior to the San Diego conference entitled 21st Century Book Marketing, here’s what I tried:
Amazon.com–to sell my hard cover books
Scribd.com–to sell digital versions of these book
Teachers Pay Teachers–to market digital texts to teachers
blogs (like this one)
Everything was self-learned. Surely, experts would have words of wisdom that would turn my marketing efforts into gold and I too could proclaim myself as a NYT Best-selling Author (which seems to be just about every published author out there).
Turns out, what I’m doing–a mix of online book sellers and social networking–is the right approach. My mistake: not being more active in the online communities I’d joined. And, not using the myriad of free resources available to nascent authors.
Before I get into the tips, let me share the collective resume of the group I became convinced within about thirty minutes of the first day would make me money:
Penny Sansieveri, author of Red Hot Internet Marketing. I’ve read her book and found many valuable tips
Marci Shimoff–(another) NYT Bestselling author. Her presentation centered around what she did to succeed and that nothing happens overnight
Jack Canfield–author of the Chicken Soup series. Like Marci, his tips were to be aware of opportunities and be patient (a quick summary–he actually shared a whole lot more depth in his 45-minute speech)
Dan Hollings–touted as the Mr. Universe of internet marketing, he shared secrets for becoming a Twitter Twenius via Twitter’s tweets
Dan Poynter–great Poynts about why traditional book publishing is “going going gone” and how that puts savvy authors in the drivers seat.
Mike Koenigs–sold me on the importance and ease of a video marketing campaign–use a flip phone video, follow a two-minute scrip, upload to YouTube and you’re off
Here are some of the tips:
Self-publish, then self-promote. Even if you’re published traditionally, you’ll probably have to push sales yourself
Access B&N.com and Sony eReader via Smashwords.com (when I went to this site, they do provide access to many platforms, but the price was such an extensive redo of my book’s layout, I’m questioning the value)
If you have ten books and can pass Barnes and Noble’s other online hurdles, try promoting your books at Fictionwise, B&N’s answer to Scribd
Publish your digital books on Scribd.com. They make it fast and easy–and I can say from experience, it works
Go to Alexa.com to check the status of your blog or website. Is it getting the word out for you?
If someone praises your book, bookmark them through Digg, Delicious, Stumble Upon to spread the good word
Compare your site to your competition with Web Confs SEO Tools
Claim your blog at Technorati, the leader in blog info
Use Spacky.com to do a keyword research for your blog or website
Set up accounts at LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter. Join the communities. Participate in Discussions. Often! This was emphasized by most of the presenters. Our brave new 21st century is all about social networking.
Use SocialOomph to get more out of your Twitter account
If you’re trying to tweet 24 times a day (like the marketing experts recommend), visit Twyndication. It’ll make that possible.
Create your writer’s profile on Google Profiles
Visit Author 101 for a crash course in publishing success
Set up an Amazon Best Seller campaign
Set up your Amazon author’s page
Set up your Goodreads author’s page
This should get you started. Do you have other ideas for readers? Post them under comments.
Jacqui Murray is the editor of a K-6 technology curriculum, K-8 keyboard curriculum, creator of two technology training books for middle school and six ebooks on technology in education. She is the author of Building a Midshipman , the story of her daughter’s journey from high school to United States Naval Academy. She is webmaster for six blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice book reviewer, a columnist for Examiner.com , Editorial Review Board member for Journal for Computing Teachers, Cisco guest blog, Technology in Education featured blogger, IMS tech expert, and a bi-weekly contributor to Write Anything. Currently, she’s editing a thriller that should be out to publishers next summer. Contact Jacqui at her writing office or her tech lab, Ask a Tech Teacher.
Filed under: Amazon, authors, blogs, business, digital books, marketing, publishing, social networks, writers, writers resources Tagged: 21st century book marketing, book marketing online, fictionwise, marketing with blogs, poynter, Scribd, smashwords, social networking, twenius, twitter
October 9, 2012
Tech Tip for Writers #79: Saving Your File so Everyone Can Read it
Tech challenged? Read on
Tech Tips for Writers is an (almost) weekly post on overcoming Tech Dread. I’ll cover issues that friends, both real-time and virtual, have shared. Feel free to post a comment about a question you have. I’ll cover it in a future Tip.
Q: I need to make my Word document readable by colleagues that don’t have MS Word. What do I do?
A: MS Office 2007 and 2010 makes that easy. You now have the option of ‘saving’ to a PDF format. I know–us old schoolers are used to ‘printing to’ to create a PDF, but that’s not how you do it in MS Office. Here’s what you do:
Click ‘save as’ for your document
drop down the ‘save as type’ until you can select ‘pdf’
Select and and save
No more purchasing a separate program or downloading a free pdf creator. Now, if you have MS Office, you do it directly from their program. I’m not an MS Office fan, but if you have it, this is a nice feature.
Questions you want answered? Email me at askatechteacher@structuredlearning.net and I’ll answer it within the next thirty days.
Jacqui Murray is the editor of a K-6 technology curriculum, K-8 keyboard curriculum, creator of two technology training books for middle school and six ebooks on technology in education. She is the author of Building a Midshipman , the story of her daughter’s journey from high school to United States Naval Academy. She is webmaster for six blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice book reviewer, a columnist for Examiner.com , Editorial Review Board member for Journal for Computing Teachers, Cisco guest blog, Technology in Education featured blogger, IMS tech expert, and a bi-weekly contributor to Write Anything. Currently, she’s editing a thriller that should be out to publishers next summer. Contact Jacqui at her writing office or her tech lab, Ask a Tech Teacher.
Filed under: tech tips for writers Tagged: MS Word, Word, writers tips, writing
October 8, 2012
Writer’s Tip #22: When to Use Said as a Tag
When you read your story, does it sound off, maybe you can’t quite put your finger on it, but you know you’ve done something wrong? Sometimes–maybe even lots of times–there are simple fixes. These writer’s tips will come at you once a week, giving you plenty of time to go through your story and make the adjustments.
Today’s tip: Stick with ‘said’ as a character tag.
I don’t necessarily agree with this one, but I’ve read it so often, I feel forced to pass it on.
Stick to “said” and always place the tag after the noun or pronoun. To use anything other than “said” distracts the reader (“said” is invisible). Words such as growled, barked, scoffed tell the reader how the character spoke rather than show it through the dialogue and action.
To have these tips delivered to your email, click here.
Jacqui Murray is the editor of a K-6 technology curriculum, K-8 keyboard curriculum, creator of two technology training books for middle school and six ebooks on technology in education. She is the author of Building a Midshipman , the story of her daughter’s journey from high school to United States Naval Academy. She is webmaster for six blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice book reviewer, a columnist for Examiner.com , Editorial Review Board member for Journal for Computing Teachers, Cisco guest blog, Technology in Education featured blogger, IMS tech expert, and a bi-weekly contributor to Write Anything. Currently, she’s editing a thriller that should be out to publishers next summer. Contact Jacqui at her writing office or her tech lab, Ask a Tech Teacher.
Filed under: characters, dialogue, writers, writers resources, writers tips Tagged: characters, dialogue, rules of dialogue, tags, writers resources, writers tips, writing tips
October 4, 2012
Check out my Article Over at Write Anything
I have an interesting article over on Write Anything on 17 Tips on How to Market Your Books Online. If you can’t make it–no worries. I’ll post it here soon.
Jacqui Murray is the editor of a K-6 technology curriculum, K-8 keyboard curriculum, creator of two technology training books for middle school and six ebooks on technology in education. She is the author of Building a Midshipman , the story of her daughter’s journey from high school to United States Naval Academy. She is webmaster for six blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice book reviewer, a columnist for Examiner.com , Editorial Review Board member for Journal for Computing Teachers, Cisco guest blog, Technology in Education featured blogger, IMS tech expert, and a bi-weekly contributor to Write Anything. Currently, she’s editing a thriller that should be out to publishers next summer. Contact Jacqui at her writing office or her tech lab, Ask a Tech Teacher.
Filed under: business, marketing Tagged: guest post, marketing, social networks
October 2, 2012
Tech Tip for Writers #77: Laptop Frozen? Here’s Another Solution
Tech challenged? Read on
Tech Tips for Writers is an (almost) weekly post on overcoming Tech Dread. I’ll cover issues that friends, both real-time and virtual, have shared. Feel free to post a comment about a question you have. I’ll cover it in a future Tip.
Q: My laptop won’t turn off. What do I do?
A: Do a hard reboot. Hold the power button in ten seconds, until the laptop turns off, and reboot.
Questions you want answered? Email me at askatechteacher@structuredlearning.net and I’ll answer it within the next thirty days.
Jacqui Murray is the editor of a K-6 technology curriculum, K-8 keyboard curriculum, creator of two technology training books for middle school and six ebooks on technology in education. She is the author of Building a Midshipman , the story of her daughter’s journey from high school to United States Naval Academy. She is webmaster for six blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice book reviewer, a columnist for Examiner.com , Editorial Review Board member for Journal for Computing Teachers, Cisco guest blog, Technology in Education featured blogger, IMS tech expert, and a bi-weekly contributor to Write Anything. Currently, she’s editing a thriller that should be out to publishers next summer. Contact Jacqui at her writing office or her tech lab, Ask a Tech Teacher.
Filed under: tech tips for writers Tagged: laptop, writers tips, writing
