Don't let August be your slump month

Have you written and submitted your work yet this summer? June and July have blown away, leaving only the dusty days of August. When the sun glares through your windows, and steam rises from your tomato plants, don't glare back in exhaustion. Park yourself in a cool spot and write so darn fast you'll generate a breeze.

In the July/August 2008 issue of Poets & Writers, Joshua Bodwell writes on The Art of Reading Andre Dubus. The essay refers to senior, the father of Andre Dubus III, who is most known for House of Sand and Fog. The son is quoted as having said this about his father's story entitled "Waiting."

The story, "... about the hollow ache experienced by a woman widowed by the Korean war, took fourteen months to write and was more than one hundred pages in early manuscript form. But when the story was published in the Paris Review, it spanned a mere seven pages."

Supports my theory of overwriting: Just keep producing. So go sit in the shade and write til August ends.

Meet Maggie Ball, a friend from down under...

One of my many online friendships is with Magdelena (Maggie) Ball, an energetic writer and host of Compulsive Reader: www.compulsivereader.com.

I've sent soon-to-be-authors to Maggie's site to study the reviews and learn what makes a book stand out, and what gets mentioned in goods review. Now Maggie Ball has authored her first novel Sleep Before Evening, and has been named as a Finalist in the the Regional Fiction category of the 2008 Next Generation Indie Book Awards.

The Next Generation Indie Book Awards were established to recognize and honor the most exceptional independently published books for the year and is presented by the Independent Book Publishing Professionals Group in cooperation with Marilyn Allen of Allen O'Shea Literary Agency. Additionally, Sleep Before Evening will be listed as a Finalist in the 2008 Next Generation Indie Book Awards catalog, distributed at Book Expo America in Los Angeles.

Talking about her book promotion, Maggie says: "I'm actually based in Australia myself, so all of the in-person promotions I've done have been here in Aus -- that includes the book launch, library talks, giving ancillary talks on subjects the book touches on like addiction, self-actualisation, art and bi-polarity.

"With Angus & Robertson, Australia's biggest independent retailer, I basically visited them in person and made a lot of phone calls -- can't beat that face to face stuff. But I have a pretty big online presence, and tend to work in a worldwide venue, and probably from a network point of view, I have many more colleagues and contacts in the US than in Australia. Also Australia is a much smaller market, and the book is set in the US, while the publisher is in the UK!"

When you think it's difficult to write fiction, try writing a novel based in New York, when you're living in Australia, while running the successful Compulsive Reader site at the same time.

The marvel of this online friendship and my reason for sharing this with you is: In all this time, knowing Maggie online and enjoying her Compulsive Reader site, I never knew she was based in Australia. It shows you both how global the "world-wide" web is, and how you must listen when I urge you to think globally in your own promotions. Living in Chicago doesn't limit your market. Use the web to target readers far and wide, and let me know when YOU are the one to win an international prize.

"Release Your Writing" is on sale at Amazon Kindle

Gee, maybe Amazon read my recent post about Readius. Nah, that couldn't be. If you do have Kindle, you'll be glad to know Amazon is offering my book, Release Your Writing on sale, for $7.99 to download for your Kindle.

In 2009, Readius takes on Kindle

How cool is this? A 7/06/08 New York Times article cites the upcoming competitor for Amazon's ebook reader. It's the "size of a standard cellphone. Flip it open, though, and a screen tucked within the housing opens to a 5-inch diagonal display. The screen looks just like a liquid crystal display, but can bend so flexibly that it can wrap around a finger."

For the full story, read the Times article or learn more from the Readius' maker Philips Polymer Vision.
If you haven't purchased a Kindle yet, even at the new lower price of $359, you might want to hold on to your money and see what other bright ideas come along.

Cross-posted on Computer Cclarity's blog too.

Ways to Write, Going Against the Grain

If you read Dan Poynter's newsletter, you already know this. If you don't read his powerful free advice and news, you can subscribe here:

His June newsletter included Five Cool Ideas for Speed Writing by trainer and coach Michael Angelo Caruso, of Edison House.

He offers five tips for writers to work faster without sacrificing quality:

1. Write to micro deadlines.
Try to generate x pages an hour or a chapter a week. Faster isn't always better, but faster is definitely . . . faster.

2. Don't worry about punctuation or spelling.
The idea is to correct the grammar later. Get the pages done, then proofread.

3. Write out of order.
Instead of writing pages in sequence, work on modules in any order. Then piece them together and provide continuity.

4. Write backwards.
It can be easier to begin when you know the end.

5. Work from an outline.
Get the main parts down first. Think of it as creating a skeleton and then "fleshing" out your work.

More 5 Cool Ideas topics at http://www.MichaelAngeloCaruso.com

Revision, revision: Save those drafts

A witty post on RedRoom.com today, by Ashira Goddard mentions something of note: "saving the edits."

I always save drafts and revisions, sometimes labeling them as "Draft3 1876 words," or "Draft4 cut," etc. When you feel you really can't let go of your work, whether good or bad, it makes sense to save your article or manuscript under another name and keep the old drafts until you're really done.

It paid off recently when an editor requested a short article, and I over-wrote, as usual. After lots of good reader feedback, she wanted a longer piece with a broader slant. Right from the start, I was halfway done, because of all the excess material I'd saved.

If you need a bit of inspiration to do the same, read Ashira's June 3rd post on RedRoom.com today.

Atlantic's take on Google

Make yourself read this lengthy article at The Atlantic web site, if you're not a subscriber or don't want to go to the library and read it:

Is Google Making Us Stupid

If you fret over your inability to concentrate when reading, if you are tired of being busy but not getting anything done, then multi-tasking and a world of sound bites may be to blame.

This Atlantic article, by Nicholas Carr, is the perfect antidote for writers, Luddites, and everyone in betweeen, who's wondering what technology has done to the written word, and our comprehension of same.

Go ahead - read it now: Is Google Making Us Stupid

"Release Your Writing" now available on Amazon Kindle

Take me with you! Release Your Writing is now available as an Amazon Kindle book. So if you have a Kindle ebook reader, you can download my book for $7.99.

Then what? Well, you can read it on planes and trains, refer to it when you're in a high-powered agent meeting, or take it to the beach. Now you can practice my "Pajama Marketing" techniques when you wake up in the middle of the night, and bookmark your favorite passages without turning the entire book into yellow highlighter!

How nice: Elizabeth Gilbert explains all

The woman who wrote Eat, Pray, Love raised the bar for all writers. But you need not feel that faint twinge of jealousy. Turns it took Elizabeth Gilbert a looooong time to be accepted:

After more than five years of sending out work for publication and collecting only rejection letters, she finally broke onto the literary scene in 1993, when one of her short stories was pulled from the slush pile at Esquire magazine and published under the heading “The Debut of an American Writer.” (excerpt from Elizabeth Gilbert's bio).


Click here for a wonderful essay sharing her thoughts on the writing life.

So, let's spend the summer writing well. As Elizabeth Gilbert says, "PUT IT OUT THERE."

Helen Gallagher
Release Your Writing

Award winner: "Release Your Writing"

I'm shamelessly following the Doris Lessing post with my own award news:

Release Your Writing: Book Publishing Your Way is a Nonfiction-General award winner in the 2008 IWPA Mate E. Palmer Communications Contest. My client and colleague, Francine Friedman also won in the Non-fiction Autobiography category for her memoir Match Dot Bomb.

Enter contests. You never know if you may win, and the ability to have your work judged by professionals is always rewarding. For Release Your Writing, the judge said:

"A fabulous work and a must for anyone trying to understand the complexities and options for publishing in the early 21st century. The organization is grand and the explanations clear and concise."

Doesn't that make you want to run out and buy a copy? Click here for purchasing options.

Attention writers: "Don't imagine you'll have it forever"

Let's get that mojo moving writers, as Doris Lessing says: "Don't imagine you'll have it forever."

Lessing: Nobel win a 'disaster'

The increased media interest in her has meant that writing a full novel was next to impossible, she told Radio 4's Front Row.

Lessing, 88, also said she would probably now be giving up writing novels altogether.

Her latest book is the partly fictional memoir entitled Alfred and Emily.

Since her Nobel win she has been constantly in demand, she said.

"All I do is give interviews and spend time being photographed."

Speaking about her writing, she said: "It has stopped, I don't have any energy any more.

This is why I keep telling anyone younger than me, don't imagine you'll have it forever.

Use it while you've got it because it'll go, it's sliding away like water down a plughole."

Lessing is the 11th woman to win the Nobel Prize for literature in its 106-year history.

Her best known work, of course, is The Golden Notebook.

Whether she means energy or time, we all know its fleeting. Read the full article at BBC.com here

The time to write!

While taking time to devote to writing is not exclusively a woman's problem, there are rather urgent reasons why we need to consciously support women in the arts. Consider these facts, from A Room Of Her Own Foundation:

• Only 9 out of 52 winners of the National Book Award for Fiction are women.
• Only 11 out of 48 winners of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction have been women.
• Generations of students studied art history with a text that did not include one woman artist—Mary Cassatt, Georgia O’Keeffe, Louise Nevelson and Lee Krasner were all excluded.
• Women writers won 63 percent of the awards but less than 30 percent of the money in awards and grants reported by Poets & Writers. (January/February 2003 issue)
• In 2002 all but one of the Pulitzer Prize finalists for Fiction and Poetry were male.
• 94 percent of all the writing awards at the Oscars have gone to men.
• Of the major artists represented by major New York galleries, only 16 percent are women.
• Only 25 percent of the advisory members of the National Endowment for the Arts are women.
• A recent study by the Coalition of Women’s Arts Organizations showed that in all one-person shows for living artists in American museums, only 2 percent of the featured artists were women.
• A 1992 study showed that only 17 percent of artists in galleries nationally were women, whereas the Bureau of Labor indicated that 48 percent of professional American artists were women.
• 51 percent of all visual artists are female and women hold 53 percent of art degrees, but 80 percent of art faculty members are male.
• 68 percent of total art income in the U.S. goes to men and 73 percent of all grants and fellowships in the arts go to men.

Need a nudge? Writing resources

If you need to recharge your creativity or find places to publish your work, the web is full of great resources.

Take a look at WorldwideFreelance.com, especially their Writing section, for help when you need a little inspiration:

They have fresh articles on:

• fiction, non-fiction and blogging
• freelance writing
• writing habits
• international markets
• the writing craft
• queries, mistakes to avoid, and dealing with rejection
• publishing and book promotion

There you go - just one site out of thousands that can turn a slow day into a writing spree!

Blogger adds post-dated feature

If you blog here at blogger.com (and why wouldn't you?), you know you can trick the system by clicking Post Options and giving your post a past or future date. Blogger has now made this a bit easier, so you can create what would be daily posts, but write a batch of them all at once, and have them load per your schedule. Read on...

Scheduled post publishing, which we talked about testing on Blogger in draft last month, is now live for everyone. If you set a post’s date into the future, Blogger will wait to publish until that time comes.

Have you ever wanted to announce something on a certain date but knew you wouldn’t be at a computer to make a post? Or you wanted to keep posting regularly but knew you’d be on vacation for a few weeks? Scheduled post publishing is here to help you out.

Scheduling a post is easy to do: on the post editor page, click the “Post Options” toggle to show the “Post date and time” fields. Then, type a post date and time that’s in the future. When you click the “Publish” button, your post will become “scheduled.” When the date and time of the post arrive, it will be automatically published to your blog.