Questions

i dont want twilight or harry potter or the golden compass. something that will take me a long time to read.(i read really fast)
- Kai

When I decided to write a novel, I had the impression that writing fiction would be easy, a winsome process that would fly on the wings of creativity. What fun to let go and free myself from the objective to the subjective. How exhilarating! Well, sort of, for a while. Fact was it took me three years to complete my first book-length manuscript that was, in the clear light of day, unreadable. During those early years, I did two things: I read books on writing, and I wrote. Neither was a bad thing, but besides taking an inordinately long time, I kept making the same mistakes over and over again. And when it came time to rewrite, I didn’t know where or how to start. The writing books were clear, concise and redundant in what they had to say. I poured over them with gusto and did a lot of highlighting. But the wisdom that spewed forth never seeped into my brain for any practical purpose.

The tasks of writing and publishing are rife with fits and starts. Some aspects may come easily, while others will prove more trying. Looking back I can now identify three critical activities, that once incorporated into my writing life, were and continue to be, of immense help.

Join a writer’s group. In the absence of attending a writing program (an option not available to most of us), the advantages of joining a writer’s group are tremendous. It is in this environment that craft can grow and flourish. Often, members in a group are diverse, not only in what they write but where they are on the writing-publishing-marketing continuum. Put all the members together and a synergy takes place, whereby a wide base of skill level and experience can be freely shared. Besides having your writing reviewed, critiquing other people’s work is likewise helpful. Figuring out what works and why is a critical developmental step in learning how to write well. And there’s also the commiseration factor. Like babies to new mothers, writing is fascinating to writers, but in the company of non-writers such discussions may leave you standing alone, drink in hand, looking furtively to where your friendly listener disappeared. Writers’ groups can be found in bookstores, continuing education programs and on-line. It’s been my experience that libraries have the space and are amenable to having community meetings. Membership can be open or restricted, receptive to all genres or focused on a certain kind of writing. No matter how the group is configured, there’s gold in ‘them thar hills’.

Write daily. Yeah. I avoided the daily quota for years: too much pressure, performance anxiety, fear of failure, you name it. Finally one summer I took on the challenge, stuck with a minimum of 250 words and kept track of my daily progress. Some days I easily surpassed the quota. Writing daily keeps the story fresh and continuous. Start out small if you like – one hundred words. Double that and you’ll have a novel-length manuscript in one year. It’s crucial to choose a word-count quota that is doable and measurable. Be realistic and don’t set yourself up for failure. I also found Ernest Hemingway’s advice helpful – keep water in the well. In other words, once you’re done writing for the day, have a sense of where you’ll be picking up the story the following day. For illustrative purposes, this paragraph runs 138 words.

Analyze Story X. Immerse yourself in a novel or short story that you wish you had written. I believe subconscious formatting occurs when a person reads and the more one reads, the better she is able to write. There is also a state of natural selection and what you hold up as your favorite book or story, most likely reflects the kind of writing you want to take on. Immersion into a story is done by reading it, speaking it, and deconstructing it. To deconstruct, write an excerpt in longhand and pay careful attention to words, sentences, paragraphs. As you develop craft, this book/story will hold many answers to your questions, i.e., How does the author handle description, backstory, transitions? My Story X is Margaret Atwood’s The Robber Bride. I still marvel at how she plays with tense, description, characterization. I have referred to this book endlessly in learning how to write. For example, when my characters were doing an inordinate amount of walking and turning and looking, I referred to a random page of Atwood’s Bride and found some fixes. By the way, I do not write like Margaret Atwood . . . yet.

For more info: Linda’s Website


- Linda A Lavid

I read a book a long time ago by a Christian author that had something to do with a mustard seed….or the faith of a mustard seed may be more appropriate. Does anyone know the name of the book, or how I can find the name? It was a fiction book.
- Shauri

Wannabe writers are full of excuses as to why they aren’t writing yet. Many of these excuses can be changed to proactive statements with a mere switch in attitude and perspective.

How many times have you read an article, and said to yourself, “I could have written this.” Well, why don’t you?

It took me a long time to discover that my passion in life was writing. Even though, as a teenager, I filled a whole blank book with poetry, which I wrote while trying to recover from the “first love’s” broken heart type of feelings.

It wasn’t until I made it a habit to start writing in my journal every morning that I found out just how easy it was to get the writing juices flowing. Below is a list of some common excuses writer wannabe’s make for not writing. You will find suggestions along with each excuse on how to counteract those excuses and move forward to success.

1. EXCUSE #1 I don’t know where to start, or what to write about.

—Just get up each morning a few minutes earlier than the rest of the household, and start writing in a journal. Write about anything and everything that pops into your mind. Try to write at least 3 or 4 pages. Devote at least 10 minutes each morning to this ritual.

Do it with a pen and notebook, rather than the computer. There is a physical connection between the brain and your fingers on the paper.

Keep your statements positive. Try to eliminate words like, “I need to” or “I should” or “I have to” replacing them with more affirming phrases. Using “I am” and “I can” changes your whole focus. I find just replacing the three phrases above makes the writing process much more positive and results oriented.

You will be amazed at the material that you can pull from this journal that can be used in your daily projects.

2. EXCUSE #2 I don’t have any experience or formal schooling in writing.

—-With the internet, and all the writing books available today, it is easy to teach yourself what it takes to write successfully. Just jump in and get your feet wet, give it a try.

Have someone you trust read over your writing, and then give you their opinion. But don’t stop with one person’s point of view.

Some of the best feedback I have received has come from people wanting to use my “free to reprint” articles. I remember one lady email me saying, “I really enjoyed reading the passionate article you wrote on this subject.” Up to that point, I had never looked at my writing as passionate.

3. EXCUSE #3 I don’t have enough confidence in my writing abilities, I can’t measure up to what is already out there.

—-Following the same advice as above, as you jump in and do it, your confidence will grow. Publish some free content articles, to promote a website, and discover just what people like and don’t like. With feedback comes confidence. It is hard not be be confident in your writing abilities when you get showered with requests to use your articles in others ezine’s and on their websites. :o)

4. EXCUSE #4 Writing will take too much time away from my family and other responsibilities.

—-On the contrary. Writing can actually benefit and help you with your other responsibilities. By establishing a morning routine of writing in your journal, you will get to know yourself better, and grow both in professional and personal development. These positive changes to you will affect everyone you come into contact during the rest of your day. This includes members of your family.

5. EXCUSE #5 I am not very creative.

—-Everyone has creativity in them. Some people have a harder time tapping into it than others. By creating a time and space for writing in your life, you are giving yourself permission to tap into your own creative subconscious resources and intelligence. You may be surprised and amazed at your own creative results.

6. EXCUSE #6 What I know has already been written.

—-Did you know, you could give 5 writers an assignment on the same subject and each one of them will come back with an article with a very unique and different focus? It is because we all look at things from different perspectives. Our perspectives are developed by our own individual life experiences and the lessons we have learned. You can take what is out there and put your own unique slant on it.

7. EXCUSE #7 I am scared, not sure I can handle criticism and rejection.

—-As mentioned already, by just doing it, jumping in and giving it a try, you will gain confidence and grow. Rejection is just someone’s opinion. Get another opinion, and then another.

Some of the best books published in history were rejected dozen’s of times before someone took a chance on them and would eventually hit the New York Times bestseller’s list.

So there you have it. Stop making excuses and jump in the water and get wet. It will be more fun, rewarding and maybe even profitable for you once you actually take some daily action steps. Who knows, you might even make a big splash upon entrance to the pool of what’s floating around. . :o)

As you begin getting your work out there, ideas will come to you so quickly it may be overwhelming at times. Just remember to write down your ideas, keeping notes on topic ideas, titles, and themes to research. The list will be endless.

Use these intuitive thoughts to spark your thought process when you actually sit down with pen to paper. You will find many stories, experiences, and lessons learned that can easily be incorporated into a promotional article. “So start writing now, may the force of your creativity be with you!”


- G.Entp8

I have a lot of poetry that I have been told is really good. I want to publish a book of all of my poetry, or at least try to. I don’t know the process of getting a book of poetry published, but would it take a long time? What is it, exactly?
- Friction

I have been writing humerous, sometimes controvertial, rhyming poetry for a long time. Would like to be part of some kind of community if anyone knows of any.
- raziellumpy

I’ve been writing a story for a long time, the beginnings of it disappeared long ago in a fatal hard drive accident, and I can’t remember what one character’s first name was originally.

It was either Anita Griffen or Elaine Griffen.

Which sounds the best? I can’t decide which it should be.
She’s an older, very sweet, kind woman, if that helps.
- Your Highness

Get Rich Quick Scams RevealedRead this article before you consider paying for a “get rich quick” program.

From: Novel WritingEverybody would love to make lots of money quickly, working from home, and only doing a few hours of work per week. I’ve spent the past two years trying to find a great way of doing this. Only over the course of the past few months have I found any “get rich quick” programs worth buying. I’ve been trying to make money online for a long time. I had a few small websites, but they never made much more than a few hundred per month. It was easy money and didn’t require much work on my part, but I knew there were people out there doing better than I was and I knew I could do as well as them. Now, I’ve seen a lot of “get rich quick” programs. Most of these people make claims about earning $2000/day with Google or something similarly insane. Almost all of these people are complete liars. Even if they were making $2000/day with Google AdSense, it’d be because they had high- traffic websites with a lot of quality content. I’d know, because in one whole month, I never even made half of what they promised I’d make daily with their programs. Maybe you’ve already been scammed by one of these fraudsters. Anyway, I finally got sick of what was being offered. I decided I’d look through the all of the “get rich quick” programs I could find and see if there were any that were actually legitimate. I found that there were owners selling their programs for well over $100, but the information in them could be found almost anywhere online for free. Additionally, they all contained out-of-date information, had no e-mail support, no money back guarantees, and broken links in the downloads section. In conclusion, almost all of the programs I found were completely useless. The owners knew it, but they couldn’t care less about their customers since they didn’t offer refund policies! Amazingly, while looking through all of the programs, I actually did find a few legitimate programs. They were run by ordinary people like you and me, and they had found some great methods of making money from their home by doing very little work. I spent some time working with those programs, and my income is now ten times what it used to be. These programs provided a large amount of great information on how to make extra money on your computer doing very little work. Numerous customers had provided great feedback and reviews for their products. Many of them have started to make money just days after buying! Their programs have excellent prices, and the authors have a group of paid staff who are dedicating to helping you or providing assistance if you need any. I must say I was amazed! If you do decide to purchase any of the programs listed below, I recommend you join quickly. Most of the owners tell me they are getting an overwhelming number of sales and plan on raising prices in the near future, so order while prices are still low! To Your Online Success, Novel Writing


- Goma Yolmo

In almost every writer’s fora that there is, the deplorable perennial problem of writer’s block has always been brought up by both professional and amateur creative writers. Some discussions have even gone as deep as defining the nature of writer’s block in the hopes of acquiring counter-active measures should writer’s block, a.k.a. “fear-of-the-blank-page” come up in the middle of a deadline.

What is a writer’s block? On the surface, it is simply a period of non-activity for the writer. A writer or a poet may attempt to write something based on the need to write something, and come up with absolutely nothing creative, if anything at all. What causes a writer’s block and what can be done about it? Here are some thoughts and suggestions:

1. The fear of coming up short from their last project - Collectively speaking, most artists and writers have an obsessive compulsion to concretize and materialize, through their works, abstracted thoughts and ideas. Once they attempt at some work, there is always that fear of producing something despairingly short of what they have intended to create from its original idea, thus, disappointing themselves more than disappointing others. If artistic or writer’s block does not happen prior tot he start of the project, it may also very well occur while the work is in process. This explains why several writers may work on different projects at the same time, jumping from one unfinished work to another, others even abandoning previous works altogether for a new one and ultimately not accomplishing anything in the end.

2. A comeback after a long time off - Vacations and some time off taking care of familial/domestic or personal matters can only have two extreme results: either it rejuvenates, recharges and inspires the writer for the next project, or it completely diminishes or finishes off whatever is left of a prolific and fecund mind! Let’s face it, even professional writers are, first and foremost, human beings before they are writers. And, as humans, brilliant and loving their professions as they may be, writers too are bound to lose footing once they have taken some time off from writing, if not inspired and recharged, as mentioned.

3. Insecurities - Lack of formal training…Being a newbie…The writing style…a friend who’s a better writer…etc., etc., etc., these can all spell one thing: insecurities. Our insecurities can really work nasty for writers and we know there is no other way out other than a paradigm shift or a change in perspective for the writer. We know that there will always be other people more educated, more renowned in the creative writing field, writers who are relatively better than us, other trends and styles in writing which the writer can become unfamiliar and intimidated with, but the bottomline is that it is just a matter of gritting your teeth with some decision-making: to write or not to write? In the first place, if a writer is already too busy being concerned with being a writer rather than actually writing, if a writer writes for some reason other than writing for its own sake, then he/she has no business being a writer at all.

4. Bills to pay, daily tasks, and other small details - Where to get the money for the bills, who brings and fetches the children to and from school, and for writers with actual day jobs, how many deadlines to meet — who can still think of writing? These concerns, to mention only a few, hampers the writer’s writer’s sensitive thoughts. These are practical things that need to be done on the daily basis. On the surface, these concerns may seem harmless to an aspiring writer, but eventually, it dries up the creative writer’s reservoir that needs constant nurturing. This is not to say, however, that children, career and domestic chores and other concerns should no longer be tended to in order to write. Being a great writer does not necessarily entail shunning away from daily practical concerns, in the same manner that a duty-free person does not give you a prolific writer. Difficult for the right-brained writer as it may be, time must be managed, schedules and systems must be established in order to attain the perfect juxtaposition and equilibrium of work (chores and responsibilities) and play (writing).


- Ian Williamson

Many people take up writing as a hobby or as a more serious undertaking later in life - maybe even after what would be considered by many retirement age. This article looks at one way the older writer can compete with younger rivals on a level playing field.

There you are, sitting looking at your finished book manuscript. It’s probably taken at least a year - maybe a lot longer - to get to this stage. Now, you say, it’s finished! Sorry to correct you here - but it’s not. It will only be finished when it is published, in book form, and sitting on a shelf in a bookshop where people can buy it.

So you send away your manuscript, bracing yourself - you have been warned about this - for rejection. You may be very fortunate and have your work accepted: if so I take my hat off to you! It is far more likely that the work will be returned. If the reason given is that is out of fashion, or not right for that particular publisher, or just plain badly written, then you can do something about it.

Sometimes though - and this an older, unpublished, writer’s pitfall - your age may work against you. I know, it’s wrong - but there it is. You may have written a great book, a truly stunning piece of work - but an agent or publisher, being hard-headed businesspeople, have to ask themselves two very crucial questions. These are:

1. Has this writer got more than on book in them? In other words, is this book something you have taken a long time - maybe years and years - to bring to a conclusion? If so, do have any more ideas or are all your guns fired?

2. Now this is not the greatest thing to dwell on - but how much longer are you going to be around? Let’s say you’re a fit 70-year old lady. You could, these days, reasonably expect another good fifteen or twenty years at least. How does this work with your writing career?

Well - a book - any book - can take five years from first rough to publication. Three years is good going. As you can only write one book at once (unless your name is Simenon!) that means you could well be hitting 90-plus if a publisher gave you a five-book contract - together with all the sales and marketing investment that implies. When they look at these sort of figures you can understand - even if you do not agree with - their concerns.

So - this leaves us with the old problem: how to get into print? Well, one excellent way is via the short story market, particularly those published within popular women’s magazines. Hang on, though - what about your age in this environment? Does it not still hold that it may count against you?

Happily, the answer is a resounding NO. Magazine editors aren’t offering you a contract beyond purchasing publishing rights from you - hardly a big investment - so concerns regarding your longevity aren’t present! Also, many older writers find they have the depth of experience concerning the human condition so essential to many stories found within the pages of this type of magazine.

Then there are other types of magazine - the science fiction short story is one of the types enjoying a keen readership, as popular today as it was seventy years ago. Maybe it’s not your thing - but it’s worth considering!

The other thing about short stories is that they are, when compared to a novel, quick to write. You could probably write twenty or thirty short stories in the time it would take you to write your book. Too, they give a new writer great exposure. It’s fair to say that the buyers of women’s magazines probably don’t do so just to read the short story tucked away towards the back - but read them they do and some magazines have readerships in the hundreds of thousands. If you sold that many copies of your novel it would be a best-seller!

Maybe the best things about getting your short story published is the great boost to confidence it brings to any fledgling (or indeed seasoned) writer. There’s nothing quite like having your name in print as the author! Add to this the bonus of getting your name known to editors and agents - yes, they do read these stories, spying out talent - and it can be seen that writing for the short story market can be a great way to get noticed.

You may decide, if following this route, that short stories are the thing for you - a writing niche that suits your talents and needs. On the other hand, should you again experience the desire to write The Novel, you have a good grounding in economical, well-planned writing (as all short stories must be) that will shine out to any publisher whose desk your manuscript lands on!


- Steve Dempster