Do you LOVE to write? Are you so zeroed in on your writing that you are oblivious to distractions? In fact, distractions do not exist during this “Twilight Zone” period of timeyou keep on writing. When you are in “The Writing Zone” you ignore hunger pangs, ringing phones, yelling kids, bathroom breaks, etc. You lose all track of time: An hour seems like five minutes. Is that you?
When writers are in this state they LOVE what they are doing and are usually highly
skilled at it. The sheer pleasure of writing is what motivates the writer. Wouldn’t
you like to be in The Writing Zone so that you can write your great book effortlessly?
There are many ways to enter The Writing Zone.
- Be calm and stay focused on your writing. Once focus locks in, it takes on a
force of its own. You are in your own private writing area where there are no
distractions. - You can enter the Zone when you are highly skilled at the task at hand. A good
example is an athlete. The more an athlete practices the better he becomes. - You can concentrate best when the demands of your writing are greater than
usual, such as a publisher’s deadline. - The Writing Flow is devoid of emotional feelings except for a highly motivated
feeling of mild ecstasy. You are elated at what you are writing. You cannot stop.
The joy of the flow. When you are in this state you love what you are
doing. You are pushing the limits of your ability to sustain the flow. You stop
everything else you are doing at the time to fully concentrate on your activity. It is
at this time you may get angry with someone who interrupts you and breaks the
flow.
How to get the flow. We all want to achieve our goals experiencing the
“joy of the writing flow.” We will get through the goal much faster. Here are 10
ideas on how to get The Writing Flow:
- First, you must want to write above all else.
- You are totally immersed in it and no other thoughts enter your mind.
- You master your craftgreat authors spend hours at a time learning their craft.
- Practice. Practice. Practice. Keep a journal of what you write and the time you
write. You may be surprised to discover that you do not put as many hours a week
into your writing as you thought. - You become extremely competent at what you do.
- Internally you feel you are engaged in a task that is RIGHT!
- The key is to learn to overcome “noise” and interference, whether internal or
external. - Develop a routine to your writing. Have your desk set up exactly as you want it
to
accomplish your task. If that includes a cup of coffee by all means have that cup of
coffee ready before you start. If you must write with a yellow pad as opposed to a
white one or a computer, then have plenty of yellow pads available. - Stay with the Moment. Focus on the task at hand, PERIOD. Do not let your
thoughts
drift to the future or “you go right out of your zone”and take your concentration
with you. - You can take a short break to “get the creative juices flowing again.” Take deep
breaths. Stay calm. Enjoy the moment. Relax your muscles. Do not start a
conversation with anyone unless it is about your writing.
You have experienced “being in the Zone” in your life many times. You may not
have realized at the time what was happening. Being in The Writing Zone is as good
as it gets. It is for all of us to experience and enjoy.
- - -
This article may be published in its entirety as long as the author’s name and Web
site address are included.
Are you stuck with a specific goal or writing project that is important to you?
Contact Joan Clout-Kruse, the Book Writers’ Coach at
CoachJoan@powerhousewriting.com to get you back on track. Finish writing your
book in 90-Days is available for the serious-minded, committed writer.
Joan is the author of “The Top 10 Traits of Silicon Valley Dynamos,” and the e-books
“How To Write Your Book In 90 Days or Less,” and “The ABCs of Success.” Contact
Joan at 650 759-2042 or check out her Web site at http://powerhousewriting.com
to get your book done once and for all in 90 days.
Here are some speaking tips when you’re forced to present on a dull topic.
INTERACTIVE:
1. Activity: Since you’re talking about Fraud & Risk let the audience FEEL what they are learning. Example: 1) Put a note in an envelope that reads, “This is a bill. You owe Phinda $100.” 2) Tape the note under one of the chairs in the presentation room. 3) Early in your session say, “Raise your hand if you would like a crisp $100 bill. I’m serious if you want a $100 bill I will show you how to get it in the next 10 seconds 4) Have everyone look under their chair. 5) Ask the “winner” to come to the front with the envelope. 6) Let them open and read it. 7) The crowd boos you and you say, “Hmmmm. It looks like somebody got ripped off. We would call that fraud. And that’s what we are here today to learn about.”
2. Audience Participation: Ask for input from the class if there is time. Example: “I need one person to share a time when they took a foolish risk, and one person to share a calculated risk.” After they share blend their comments into your presentation. “Notice that Jeff said it was foolish to jump off his two story home when he was twelve. Look closely at your notes. If you do not have these procedures in place, it will be much worse than a two story leap.”
PRACTICAL:
1. Day to day. Can the information be applied outside the work place? Example: “The next time you go and buy a car think about this session. DO NOT ignore the fine print. Memorize section 3 - 2. It can be applied to every major purchase and will prevent you from being taken advantage of.”
2. How it plays a part. Help the student see how this information keeps their company functioning safely and thus keeps their paychecks rolling in on a regular basis. Example: “Without these directives in place, allow me to share with you EXACTLY how your company will enter a period of litigation that will lock the assets like an anaconda squeezing a pig for so long that your grandchildren will never see a nickel of your income.”
LESS PROCEDURAL:
1. Stories. Get the email addresses of all attendees. Keep in touch and ask them to share innovative ways they have implemented the information. Example; “Just this week I got an email from a previous seminar attendee. Here is how Sally Freedman put this into action without making it too stuffy…”
2. Attitude. There is always an anal-retentive personality that loves procedure and makes it emotionless. So encourage the people to not look at procedure as limiting but freeing. Example: 1) Hold up a chain with a lock on it. 2) Hold up a key. 3) “You can look at these procedures as a chain or a key. You get to choose. Are they chains that prevent you from operating creatively? Or are they keys that free you to serve without the fear of fraud or unwarranted risk?”
SO I DON’T GO TO SLEEP:
1. Emotional. What excites you the most about the presentation? Before each presentation remind yourself of the value that you’re sharing. Clearly communicate to YOURSELF all the advantages of this program.
2. Fresh. 1) Keep getting new testimonials about the program. 2) Continually think of ways to illustrate in story, physically, and practically. 3) Look at the presentations as ways to experiment and try out a new teaching technique.
Paul Evans is the creator of the instant speaking success system. You can
read more articles by Paul at
http://www.Free-Knowledge.com.
Finding the time to write a novel is one of the major issues confronting writers, particularly those who haven’t been published yet. How does one justify to themselves, or to their loved ones, that they need time to write if they have demands on their time, like a job, or a house to be cleaned, a family to be fed, or shopping to do? They make the time.
To make time, one would have to sit down and plan it. If this is not done, then writing will become a haphazard event, dictated by a whim, or a passing urge, rather than a scheduled time. This often results in the book never really being finished. You do want to finish that book, don’t you? Below, I have my own suggestions as to how to make time.
- Think about your daily schedule, just like when you do a budget, only instead of money, you’ll be budgeting time.
- Then get a nice large desktop calendar, the ones that cost about two dollars. Begin filling in the mandatory slots for the week. Do you have a work schedule, or a doctor’s appointment, a meeting to go to, etc.? Then write these times down.
- Next, fill in the times for meals, showers, shopping, socials, etc.
- Now look at the times that you are free. Please don’t say there isn’t any time left! There will probably be some time available somewhere. Maybe it’ll be at lunchtime, if you are working, or after dinner, or even during the day if you’re a stay-at home parent (when junior is napping).
- If you are a new writer, start slow. Maybe find one hour a day and reserve that for your writing. Go ahead and write the date in the calendar. You just made an appointment with yourself. Now do it for every day of the week. You decide if you want to work the weekend or not.
- If you are a more seasoned writer, you will probably need more time. I find that I need a minimum of three hours a day to write. Sometimes I may also use this time doing research for my book.
Once you make that appointment with yourself, that’s the easy part. Next, you have to keep that appointment. There are so many instances when something else interferes with your designated time. I know, I’ve been there. Therefore, you need to have some flexibility. Always have a reserve time slot handy in case you don’t make your date. Although I was pretty regular and rarely strayed from my afternoon schedule, there were times that I just couldn’t stay on track. I learned to be flexible and wrote in the evenings. The important thing to remember is to not stray too far from your schedule, because it defeats the purpose.
Once you’ve scheduled your writing dates, then prepare your work area. Try and have it ready before your designated time. If you have a computer, make sure the printer has enough paper, and there’s a floppy disk available to save your Word files in. If you use a pen and paper instead, make sure you have them handy. Also, make sure you have enough lighting in the room. You wouldn’t want to strain your eyes. Make your writing area as comfortable as you can.
Now try writing for a week. How did it feel? If you’re like me, it felt great. Not only did it feel great writing, but I quickly found out it wasn’t enough time! One does need time to get into the story, to think about the dialogue, to write that chapter. Sometimes you’ll be so absorbed in your writing, that you may surpass the hour you designated, and that’s fine if you go beyond your scheduled time (unless it affects your other activities). There will be other times when you’ll sit there doodling, trying to write something, and it won’t be easy, so you’ll probably finish quicker than the allotted time.
The important thing is to write on a consistent basis. It’s similar to exercise. In order to see results, you have to do it persistently and over a long period of time. A novel can never be written in one sitting! Over the course of your writing, you’ll be learning valuable skills that can only come from experience. Also, you’ll notice that the more you write, the easier it’ll become.
As you follow your daily writing schedule, you will show your loved ones that you are serious about your work, and more importantly, prove to yourself that you can write that novel!
I wrote my first novel in 1- years. Being a stay-at-home mother gave me the opportunity to write during my baby’s naps, which averaged about 2-3 hours each afternoon. It is very rewarding to see your novel taking shape. If I could do it, then so can you!
Patty Apostolides is author of Lipsi’s Daughter. She has published several articles and poems. Her website showcases her works: http://www.geocities.com/10500bc/index.html
“Play your cards close to the vest.” “Knowledge is Power.”
In the industrial age, knowledge was indeed power. Your manufacturing processes gave you a competitive edge. Knowing how (and where!) to find the oil reserves put you ahead of your competition. It was the Cold War era, there was a lot of spy vs. spy stuff going on. Everyone was paranoid, desperately clinging to each morsel of data like it was the last clean bathroom stall at Woodstock.
But those days are over.
Now we’re in the information age, and the new mantra is “Content is King”. These days, sharing knowledge is power. That power can mean hundreds of thousands, even millions of dollars in revenue.
Are you sharing your knowledge with your prospective customers? Do you “open the kimono” and allow them to peek behind the scenes into your business, or are you still playing things “close to the vest”?
Certainly there are some things you’ll want to keep confidential. I’m not suggesting that you over-disclose, but the more you share with your target audience, the more likely they are to buy from you and the more quickly you will grow your business.
For instance, I have a business that does article submission for authors ( http://www.ArticleMarketer.com ) and I have taken advantage of many opportunities to openly share what my chief competitors www.submityourarticle.com and www.thephantomwriters.com seem to feel is “confidential” information. They don’t seem be interested in sharing information with their prospective customers.
Article submission services are certainly not a new concept on the web, and I’m not here to talk about the reasons you should submit articles. I simply want to demonstrate how different business owners approach the concept of sharing information with their prospects, and the difference it makes in results.
Actual results:
At the time of writing this article, my article submission site has been accepting articles for only a few weeks and already hundreds of authors, each representing one or more business interests, have signed up and are submitting their articles through our service.
In contrast, one of my competitors proudly states that he has been in business for almost 5 years and has served “100+ online businesses”. Why so few? How come his business is growing so slowly while Article Marketer has grown so fast? It’s because we share the information necessary for authors to make a decision.
Another example: http://www.ezinearticles.com is an article repository. Christopher Knight has put together a terrific site that meets the needs of his constituency and he does a great job of sharing information. He’s light years ahead of his competitors www.goarticles.com and www.articlecity.com because he communicates with his customers. Just the other day I received a note from him about a new feature he’s added to his system that makes it easier for authors. His competitors don’t seem to do the same thing. I’ve never heard from them. I hear from Chris regularly.
What Information Should Be Shared?
This is a very easy question for you to answer for your own business. Share whatever information your prospective customers need in order to make a purchasing decision. Share whatever information your existing customers need in order to decide to come back for more.
For my prospective customers (people who want to promote their businesses) this is pretty simple, but my competitors don’t seem to do it.
The information we share is one of the main reason we’ve grown so big, so fast. For instance, right on the home page of my site you can find a long list of some of the places we distribute articles. There is no such list available at my competitor’s sites.
Of course, publishing this list on my site could potentially give my competitors enough information to steal business away from me - but I’m really not worried. Our complete distribution list is so long and diverse that if my competition steals this partial list from me, I’m still way ahead of them.
And that’s the key to knowing what information should be shared. My prospective customers aren’t interested in knowing every publisher, editor, content site, article repository, newsletter, forum and distribution list we have on our list, they merely want to see and judge for themselves that our list is comprehensive. Once they see this partial list (about 100 of the sites we submit to), they are satisfied. And that’s the goal of your information sharing campaign: to satisfy your prospect.
Another bit of information you can share is a demonstration of other customers (in my case authors) using your services. That’s the reason so many businesses use testimonials. At Article Marketer, we’ve taken the concept to a whole new level with a “ticker” that scrolls across the screen identifying new authors submitting articles, the titles of recent articles that were submitted, places they were distributed to, articles being distributed in a certain category - and it’s all done in real time. (Go see it for yourself - it’s pretty cool!)
It’s better than any testimonial - because it expresses action and demonstrates current activity on the site. Psychologists call it “social proof” It’s the reason that crowded booths at trade shows are more popular than deserted booths at trade shows. It’s why “seat fillers” are hired to sit in at the Oscars when someone leaves their seat. It’s why savvy club owners make sure there’s a line outside the door, even if they have to pay line-standers. Crowds draw crowds.
The information you share doesn’t have to be confidential. I’m not suggesting that you give out your financial data or expose your proprietary methodology, but you do have to give your prospective customers a good sense of what they’re buying.
When you’re trying to determine what information to give your prospects, answer these questions: What do I get? If you can show them what they get in such a way that it’s clearly better than what they’ll get anywhere else, they’ll be satisfied. Are other people doing it? Using testimonials and other “social proof”, allow your prospective customers to peek behind the scenes and get a sense that other people are using your products and services.
Does sharing your information work? Yes. Content is truly king and it’s going to stay that way for quite awhile.
Share your knowledge with the world. Get your expertise out to millions of prospective customers by submitting articles to 1000s of editors and publishers eager to publish them. Visit http://www.articlemarketer.com and distribute your articles all over the web. http://www.articlemarketer.com
Have you been guilty of procrastinating on your book project,
lately? Like the author, many writers get hung up with wrong
thinking about writing and completing their books. They feel like a
loser because they have stopped and started countless of times over
the years. They fail to realize you actually become a winner the
minute you start moving toward your worthwhile goal. Instead they
continue procrastinating until they give up. A client confessed she
thought writing a book was too hard. Knowledge and know-how can be formed into a weapon that will destroy the power of
procrastination. Using the 7 weapons below writers can conquer the
giant procrastination and finally realize their book dream.
Weapon #1 Do it Now!
Now is better than later. Remember you become a successful author
the minute you start moving toward your worthwhile book goal. I
don’t know anyone that regrets they wrote a book. But the author
has met plenty of people that regret they didn’t do it sooner.
Weapon #2 Invest time in designing your passion points “top marketing spots” beforehand!
Spend time on developing the passion points designed to sell
more before your book is even completed The passion points are
the title, cover, thesis, audience, benefits & features, mini sales
letter written as introduction and back cover copy of each book.
For example, at least half of the book’s success will be on the
title you choose.
Weapon #3 Know you don’t have to be a degreed expert, great
writer or do loads of research.
Write books you are interested in and want to learn more about.
As you look for information, talk to experts and write, you become
the expert. Find out what questions your readers will want
answered. Organize them into categories which become your table of
contents and eventually your chapters. Remember there are
interested readers who are waiting for your helpful information.
Weapon #4 Realize your message is significant and deserves your
attention, love and time.
Consider what your readers need and want. If your book shares
something unique, encouraging, useful, entertaining, it is
important enough to be written. Think about your gift? God gave you
your gift to share with others. Our gift back to God is what we do
with it. The loving care you put into your gift (book) the more
rewards await you.
Weapon #5 Recognize your book will sell with your marketing efforts
It’s true not everyone will want to buy your book. Yet there are
plenty of your targeted audiences that will want your entertaining
or helpful information. The world awaits your self-help, how-tos,
business, or poetry book. When you take the time to touch their
emotions with something that benefits them, they will pull out their credit card or cash and pay the price. Top selling non-fiction topics are self- help, mysteries, parent/children, sex and romance. Remember women buy 78% of all trade books.
Weapon #6 Realize the journey doesn’t have to be long or
difficult.
Invite your friends and family to brainstorm with you as peer
editors. Ask for their feedback on the thesis, title and chapters -
one at a time. Don’t become isolated in your thinking. Opening your
writing process up to others will give you a better feel for what
your readers may want. Enroll in a writing and/or publishing class
to elevate your thinking. Join a critique group to get feedback.
Subscribe to newsletters and read articles on book writing to get
tips that will help you on your journey to a successful book.
Weapon #7 Acknowledge publishing has changed and doesn’t have to be too expensive, too long and too difficult anymore.
Technology has advanced the publishing process into new realms.
Traditional publishing has normally taken one to two years. With e-
Book and Print on Demand (POD) printing technologies, an author can see their quality looking book in print within a few months or less.
Remember if you get to some parts of the project that’s beyond
your skill or know-how consider coaching and other professional
services that will carry you over anything blocking you from
writing, completing and publishing your successful book.
If you have been succumbing to procrastination, take a different
strategy use the perspective and 7 weapons above to overcome any giant called procrastination keeping you from fulfilling your book dream.
© Earma Brown, 10-year author, entrepreneur and book coach
eBk: Jumpstart Writing Your Best Book
Helps Writers and Entrepreneurs realize their book dreams
P.O. Box 612, Wylie, Texas 75098
Visit http://www.writetowin.org
To receive free ezine iScribe
& mini-course “Jumpstart Writing Your Best Book”
mailto:iscribe@writetowin.org
Ph: 877-846-9908
When I was five years old, my parents bought me a manual typewriter for a Christmas present. I practiced every day until I was able to type letters to my grandparents and other relatives. Although it is safe to say that I have been a writer since 1963, I didn’t start making money from my writing until I started Graphico Publishing in 1988.
Back in those days, Adobe Acrobat Reader (PDF) had never been thought of. In fact, the word “internet” was unknown to the majority of the general public. Therefore, I had only three options available to me if I was going to sell my articles and books:
- Submit them to publishers, hoping they would be published “someday”;
- Typeset my own books, print them on a copier and mail copies to customers ordering directly from me (this also meant that I had to market the books myself); or
- Pay a printer to typeset and print my books, which meant I had to buy a minimum amount and pay for them upfront (which could cost $10,000 or more).
I chose to employ option Number 2. I figured that I would not have to spend any money using that option because as books were ordered, I could print them on my copy machine. Besides, my books were not full-length paperbacks. They were 20-page booklets that I could print on letter-size paper, fold in half and saddle stitch. Only until I started selling 100s of books would I invest into purchasing a minimum amount from a printer. Besides, the idea of not having to stock a product was of great importance to me since I was living in a small one-bedroom apartment at the time.
However, while choosing the Number 2 method above would save me a lot of money, I was going to have to learn how to market and typeset my books. Learning to typeset was pretty easy. I went to a printer’s supply store and picked up books showing me different styles of fonts and I looked at every display advertisement I could find. I purchased Roger Parker’s Book, “The Aldus Guide to Basic Design” (http://www.newentrepreneur.com/) and was soon able to start designing my own ads, using combinations of examples I learned from the professional designers. The entire learning experience was great fun and I acquired a skill that I now use on a daily basis.
Learning to market though, took longer compared to learning how to typeset. That is because there are so many variations to marketing. What works for one person may not work for another. However, with the vast amount of technology available at your fingertips today, learning to market your products and services is as simple as filling out forms and posting messages to bulletin boards utilized by your target market.
Little did I realize at the time that the procedure I utilized to sell my books by printing copies only when an order was received is the same thing as print-on-demand publishing. The only difference is that today, most of the marketing and typesetting is included in the publishers price. Since I already know how to typeset my books, the publisher normally gives me a discount of $100 to $150 for saving them time and expense.
I was first introduced to print-on-demand publishing when I wrote my book, “How to Start, Operate and Market a Freelance Notary Signing Agent Business” available online at http://www.50statenotary.com/book). Not knowing that print-on-demand publishing existed I sent my manuscript to several publishers for acceptance. To my surprise, two publishers accepted the book and one offered me an advance of $2,800.
At first I was elated. I called all my friends and we all yelled and screamed together in excitement. The excitement was short lived when I received an email from the publisher the next day with a list of demands they required before my book could be published. One of the demands was the name of my book needed to be changed and secondly, I was not permitted to publish my testimonial to Jesus Christ in the back of the book. I immediately said “no” and began seeking other alternatives for publishing.
To make a long story short, I found Gom Publishing (http://www.gompublishing.com) through my local Christian Blue Pages directory. It just so happened that their office was located within 10 miles of my house. I called them up, asked if I could come for a visit and received a personal tour of their operation. It was a great learning experience and I was sold on the idea of print-on-demand publishing.
Here are just some of the advantages to a writer who uses print-on-demand publishing:
- You have total control over your book. No one is going to edit your work and take out your personal “style” or omit sections you know to be important. Gom Publishing includes copyediting with virtually all of their publishing plans, which is something I did not find with most other print-on-demand companies.
- Your book is available for sale within 90 days or less if you assist with the design. Compared to the “old time” methods of publishing, even if a publisher accepts your book, it normally is not available for sale for almost a year or later. The whole world could change in that length of time and you would still have to wait a year or more before you got paid for your hard work.
- You can make up to 50% for every book you sell. Compare this to a publisher who only pays the writer an 8% to 10% commission. This means that you can set up a web page to sell your book, take orders and purchase the amount of books your need to fill the orders at a 50% discount from the print-on-demand publisher. Gom Publishing offers a 55% discount, which increases your profits even more. This option is not possible with standard publishers who purchase the exclusive rights from a writer, thus not allowing the writer to sell their books on their own.
- Print-on-demand publishers also build excellent marketing benefits into their basic prices. These marketing benefits include: (a) assignment of an ISBN number; (b) ISBN bar code printed on book cover; (c) Library of Congress cataloging and registration; and (d) automatic listing on the world’s largest bookstores: Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Waldenbooks and Borders. I found with Gom Publishing that they even have programs to distribute your book through third party distributors, sales reps, and even offer publicist services. All you have to do is help in the promotion by directing people to you book on these websites. The credit card orders are processed for you, the books are shipped to your customers and you receive a monthly commission check.
Of course there are many more benefits to print-on-demand publishing than the four I listed above, but I am sure you can begin to see the benefits for yourself. However, even though print-on-demand publishing has many “pros,” there are some “cons” that you might want to consider. One of those “cons” is how the established publishing community views print-on-demand books. They view them as “vanity” publications and booksellers may be reluctant to deal with them. Trade journals like Publishers
Weekly and Kirkus also do not like to deal with print-on-demand published books and magazines and newspapers shy away from them also.
Why are publishers who are located in the high-traffic media biased against print-on-demand publishing? Because they know the author had total control over the book and it did not go through the standard editing process. So what? In my opinion, the media makes a great deal of money from writers and since print-on-demand technology does not provide them with this extra revenue print-on-demand publishing leaves a “bad taste” in their mouths. They tell their employees that print-on-demand publishing is not professional behavior, when the truth of the matter is that print-on-demand publishing is taking money out of their pockets. The “biggies” cannot reveal their true motive, so they do the “human” thing and create as much bad publicity for the print-on-demand industry that they can then use the leverage of other “biggies” like themselves to keep everyone’s pockets padded with the green stuff.
So unless you plan to write a book that you expect to be interviewed on BookTV or Larry King Live about, I suggest you check out print-on-demand publishing. Below are some print-on-demand publishers you may want to consider and compare prices:
- Gom Publishing, http://www.gompublishing.com
- Graphico Publishing, http://www.graphicopublishing.com
- Author House, http://www.authorhouse.com/
- BlitzPrint, http://www.blitzprint.com/
- Instant Publisher, http://www.instantpublisher.com/
Or, go to any search engine and type in the search words “print-on-demand publishing” and start shopping. I chose Gom Publishing to publish my book. The total cost was less than $600 and I made this money back almost immediately.
If are a first time writer or even published, you need to check out the benefits for your work by utilizing print-on-demand publishing. At least you now have more options available to you and perhaps one day, writers will be less dependent on publishers and can take the control over their own products.
Victoria Ring is a freelance writer, typesetter and designer. She is the founder of 50statenotary.com, graphicopublishing.com and victoriaringconsulting.com. All companies are dedicated to providing one-of-a-kind products and services for the small business person.
If a writer is to succeed he or she must take risks. What are these risks?
One of the first risks is the usage of time. If the idea of success is to write for one’s own satisfaction only, then writing is but a hobby, but if one is interested in being recognized as a writer, then other risks must be addressed.
The first one is the fear of rejectionrejection by peers, rejection by editors, and finally, rejection by readers. The first, can be the most important: if a writer presents his or her work to fellow writers and they are too critical, it can have a detrimental effect on the author, often to the point that the writer abandons his or her dream.
An important rejection is that by editors, but it must be realized that the editor has not rejected the writer, only that particular work. Many reason are possible: not appropriate, not needed at the time, overlooked, and many others. All writers have their work rejected so one must look for another market.
If the work is published, then the reader comes into play. Will they buy and read it? If they do, will they consider it or simply snub it?
Another risk is writing what you believe in. If the writer is to succeed, one must be convinced that what he or she says is important to them. Otherwise, the writing will lack sincerity and authenticity.
Once the work is written, it is important to get it out to readers and that can involve sending it to appropriate publications whether in the trade online or otherwise. Do not give up. If the writer believes that the work is significant then it must be placed before readers.
This mean that the writer must promote it with every means at his or her disposal, and many exist: newspapers, word of mouth, business cards, brochures, web sites, blogs, etc., to name a few.
Probably the greatest risk is believing in one’s self. Most writers have vulnerable egos thus it’s important to develop a positive attitude to one’s work. If the writer believes in his ability and effort then the battle is won.
Charles O. Goulet has a BA in history and a BEd in English literature. He has six books published, mainly historical novels.
His website is: http://www.telusplanet.net/public/go1c
His Blog is: http://go1c.blogspot.com
When you sit down to write a steamy romance, a spine-tingling horror story, or an action-packed adventure, lock the door. The last thing you need is your mother, father, coach, English teacher or pastor reading over your shoulder and giving you advice.
While mom, dad, coach, Mrs. Smith and Reverend Jones all enjoy a good story, they don’t want action-packed, spine-tingling or steamy words flowing out of your pen or your word processor
What would your mother say if she saw you write, “Bob chopped off Bill’s ear with a rusty axe”? What would your English teacher say if she saw you write, “Janice discovered to her horror that reading Faulkner backwards called demons into the school library.” And, heaven help you, what would your pastor say if he saw you write, “When Arnold reached inside Amy’s blouse, she said, ’surely you can reach farther than that’”?
With a little luck, mom, dad, coach, Mrs. Smith and Reverend Jones won’t be physically in the room saying “tsk tsk” every time you mention rusty axes, demons, and blouses. However, if you write as though they are there, then they might as well be there.
In fact, if you worry about what any traditional authority figure in your life is going to say when s/he reads what you’ve written, you’ll never write it. The judgmental editor(s) inside your head will be so strong, your writing won’t get out of the blocks because you’ll be forever stuck between what you want to say and what you think you’re allowed to say.
Frankly, some writers will never get the critical voices out of their heads and write anything worth reading until the people they represent are all in prison, committed to psychiatric wards, or dead. But most of us don’t want to wait that long.
As your career progresses, you’ll ultimately come to the point where you live and breathe novelist Leon Uris’ words: “There are two weapons in the writer’s arsenal. The first is stamina and the second is uncompromising belief in yourself.”
Until you reach that point, here are a few ideas for banishing mom, dad, coach, the English teacher and the reverend from your mind while writing:
**Whether you write in a den or a spare corner in the kitchen or family room, design a rich, inspiring, and professional space. You are a professional writer doing professional work, not a child in need of any authority figure’s supervision. Some writers go a step farther and physically lock the door (if there is a door) and/or visualize their writing spaces surrounded by a force fields that repel unwanted intrusions like, “I don’t want you writing nothing naughty, you hear?”
**Resist the urge to tinker and pick at your work while writing the first draft. Tinkering stalls the creative process and allows those unwanted internal editors time to say, “No child of mine ought to be thinking about blood-spattered sheets.”
**Experiment with “free writing,” the process of writing at full-speed (as fast as you can type or move a pen) for 20 minutes, 45 minutes, or an hour without stopping or thinking for even a moment. In this unrestrained creative rush, there’s no time or space for discouraging words such as, “You’re not going to push that sweet woman off the roof are you?”
**Take the risk and pretend you are each of the characters you’re writing about as though you’re playing roles in a movie. This technique will not only help you get to know your characters and make them more real, but it might just keep those internal editors out of your face. Once you become transform yourself into a villain or a hero running down a dark alley with a knife, those voices will be much to frightened of you to say, “don’t run with sharp objects, dear.”
**Confront the authority figures inside your head directly. When one of them interrupts your work with “Mama don’t allow nothin’ gory in your story” or “Daddy can’t abide nothin’ stronger than ‘heck’ or ‘darn’ in your yarn,” stop writing and shout, “Get the #@#* out of my space.” Some writers draw faces on sheets of paper and tape them to pillows. Then, the next time they hear a discouraging word about the word they just wrote, they can shout at the pillow, while kicking and punching it as needed. (Don’t tape the picture of a real person on the pillow without consulting a counselor!)
Internal editorswhen they sneak into your mind under the guise of a mother, father, coach, teacher, or minister who claims s/he is “just trying to help”will try to sabotage your work before it sees the light of day, before it embarrasses the family, before it sullies their values, before it causes black marks to be inscribed on your permanent record.
In time, perhaps, the people in your life who matter will understand that the steam in the romance, the scream in the horror story, and the mangled corpse in the adventure are not the real you. Perhaps they already know that, but you don’t yet believe it and have been creating two fictions every time you sit down at your desk. One of these is the story you’re writing and the other is the equally fictional story your living inside your head filled with mothers, fathers, coaches, ministers, wives, husbands, sons, daughters and teachers who are forever criticizing your work before it’s half-way done.
You can speculate until the ink in your pen dries up whether injunctions like “Mama don’t allow no fighting in my writing” have anything to do with real authority figures or represent your own concerns about what you ought to write and how you ought to write it. Either way, an important part of every writer’s on-the-job training is learning which technique will silence any internal editor with the gall to say, “I don’t want no crooks in your books” or “There better not be anything risqué in what you have to say.”
The author of the mythic new age adventure novel “The Sun Singer,” Malcolm R. Campbell provides manucript critiques and editing assistance at http://www.campbelleditorial.com
In the beginning of your story you have to grab your readers’ interest and sustain it till the end. Our hook is our character. Readers keep on reading to find out more about the character. To see what he’ll do in the story; how he’ll solve his problems. What his goals are and whether he’ll achieve them.
And because our character is the reason readers become hooked on our stories, establishing him at the start is a must in a short story. And it is essential to establish him at the start because we don’t have the capacity in our limited word length to introduce him at our leisure.
The bond between readers and character has to be developed almost immediately.
You might have a few characters though. How do you decide who your main character will be? A main character is one that drives the story.
Think of it this way… If we were to take him away, there will be no story because it’s his story we are telling. The story will unfold by what is happening or what has happened to him.
When you establish who your main character will be, the next thing to do is to find which of your characters is in the best position to tell the story. Will your main character tell his story or will you give that role to another character?
This is what we call Viewpoint and what we’ll see in more detail in proceeding chapters.
Your main character isn’t necessarily the one who is telling the story; he might not even appear in our story ‘physically’ but will be there through the thoughts of others. So the viewpoint character might be a secondary character.
Whoever is telling the story is the viewpoint character.
The viewpoint character gives the coloring of the story. Whatever this characters says, we will believe. It may or may not be true, according to the main character, but because he isn’t there ‘physically’ to voice his opinions, we will have to take the viewpoint character’s word for it.
In a novel you can play around with viewpoint. You can have several viewpoint characters. In a short story it works best with one.
So your main character, whether he’ll be telling his own story or someone else will be doing it for him, has to be established at the start of your story.
Having said that, let’s see the reasons why the main character may not be telling his own story…
- Perhaps our main character is one that readers won’t sympathize or empathize with.
- Or the main character will not view highly with our readers
- Or the viewpoint character knows all the facts and can tell the story better
- Etc.
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Let me give you an example of a secondary character telling the story of a main character…
Let’s say your secondary character is a psychiatrist and the main character is the patient. Depending on what’s going to go on in the story, we’ll have to choose who’s in a better position to tell it. In this case, I will choose the psychiatrist.
I’ve done this because the patient is confused, being the one with the problems. The psychiatrist knows all the facts and his opinions will make things clearer to readers.
So, as the secondary character (the psychiatrist) unravels the story, we’ll become involved in the main character because it’s the main character’s story that is been told.
This may get a little confusing to the beginner writer. As they write they will have to keep in mind that the secondary character, although he’s telling the story, is NOT our main character.
The secondary character is there to do perform a task. He’s only the voice. It’s the main character we’ll become involved with.
A secondary character doesn’t play such an important role as a main character does. Therefore, information about secondary characters should be kept to a minimum. It’s not his story - it’s the main character’s story and the spotlight must, most times, be kept on the main character.
Take the above example for instance. It’s no relevance to the story how the psychiatrist started his career or where he received his diploma - what’s important, is what he has to say about the main character, his patient.
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Introduce your main character straight away, as close to the beginning of the story that’s possible. Enable your readers to form a bond and that will keep them hooked.
Is your main character established at the start of your story?
Besides his passion for writing, Nick Vernon runs an online gift site where you will find gift information, articles and readers’ funny stories. Visit http://www.we-recommend.com
Reporters and writers know the value of face-to-face interviews. Follow-up questions are easy in real time allowing writers to chase a new line of questioning with little effort or loss of spontaneity. Watching an interviewee’s movements, nervous twitches or smiles provides reporters with physical indicators of the truth or lie in an answer. Being on the scene allows writers to create descriptions of the individual and background details, adding depth and richness to the final article.
Where does that leave interviewing via email? While it may not be the same as a face-to-face or even a phone interview, it can meet the needs of writers who write for a global marketplace on a low budget.
True, an email interview leaves the interviewer with less details: no
description of places or discussion of scents, facial expressions,
hesitations or eagerness during the interview, but email interviews have certain advantages.
Email makes it easy for writers to connect with subjects in another time zone. Instead of the expense of traveling to interview a chef, or the difficulty of executing a 2 a.m. phone call, writers can email questions during regular working hours. The same goes for the chef to be interviewed. She can respond when she has time, and often in greater detail.
Interviewing by email allows subjects that are shy or ineloquent to shine during an interview. With time to contemplate what they want to say, and the opportunity to say it through email without pressure, encourages more reserved people to submit to an interview.
In addition, shy writers can add assignments to their work schedule knowing they will be comfortable doing email interviews.
Having trouble finding witnesses to an event, participants in a diet, or a broad spectrum of opinions for a particular article? Post on message boards or send emails to an address list asking questions. Email interviews are great for gathering a variety of quotes on short notice. Calling 50 people on the phone looking for quotes doesn’t compare with the ease of sending out a mass email.
Email is great for contacting public relations departments, setting up phone or in-person interviews with the person needed for an article, or gathering background information and publicity photos of dishes, chefs or products. They are also good for checking quotes and statistics; emailing subjects with a list of facts that need to be confirmed gives the writer a record of the confirmation.
Some of the benefits also create difficulties. While someone for whom
English is a second language may appreciate being able to take the time to write out exactly what they want to say, allowing some interview subjects time to offered a canned answer to a hard-hitting question can lower the impact of an interview.
Follow-up questions are difficult to do with email too, but not impossible. Expect the need for several emails between writer and interview subject.
As a final caution: if writers want to conduct email interviews, they should still act and write professionally. Who wants to be interviewed by a writer that uses internet shorthand (”Thanks hun, wOOt. U r the best!”)?
Email interviews are here to stay. Their convenience allows writers to
reach around the globe for interviewees without leaving home. As technology develops and our dependency on it deepens, do take time regularly to reflect that one of the reasons writers become writers is to see the world, experience it, and share their findings with others. Use email for interviews when appropriate or necessary, but when the opportunity to travel afar or into town for an interview, get up and go for it.
About the Author
Pamela White is the publisher of Food Writing, an online newsletter for writers, and the teacher of Eat, Drink, and Make Money: All About Food Writing, an online 8-week course. More information is on www.food-writing.com . She is the author of Fabjob’s Guide to Becoming a Food Writer at http://www.FabJob.com/foodwriter.asp?affiliate=2464.
