Feeling stuck?

If the winter weather has your writing in a rut, consider these wise words from a former US President, and keep writing!

"Imperfect action is better than perfect inaction."

                                                                                                                                  — Harry Truman

The Writer's Clock

It's 2014 and the clock is ticking.  Let's hold ourselves accountable but not resist the levity of this terrific clock:

Source and ordering info: http://lindarohrbough.us/clocks.htm

On a Languid Summer Saturday

While browsing the stacks of favorite books on my many shelves, I came across Virginia Woolf's small masterpiece, The Waves, this morning.

We've all read it but as a writer seeking the secrets of true writing, The Waves has special meaning, and it takes a slow summer Saturday to sit down and appreciate it. Other days, other months are too distracting, but a steamy August Saturday lets a little more light and warm air swirl around us, so we sit, and we read amid the garden's glory.

"There are hours and hours,' said Rhoda, 'before I can put out the light and lie suspended on my bed above the world, before I can let the day drop down, before I can let my tree grow, quivering in green pavilions above my head. Here I cannot let it grow. Somebody knocks through it, They ask questions, they interrupt, they throw it down."

Have you ever noticed the chapters in The Waves? The author mentions she wrote to a rhythm and not to a plot. This tiny book explores Woolf's individual and collective identity, moving through the passage of time and the cycle of nature as her six main characters develop from childhood to maturity.

Each chapter begin in a delightful style, using the sun to pace the reader's way through the story, as I did on this languid day...

The sun had not yet risen.
The sun rose higher.
The sun rose.
The sun, risen, no longer couched on a green mattress darting a fitful glance through watery jewels, barred its face and looked straight over the waves.
The sun had risen to its full height.
The sun no longer stood in the middle of the sky.
The sun had now sunk lower in the sky.
The sun was sinking.
Now the sun had sunk.

It may interest you to know that Virginia Woolf worried that The Waves would be 'fundamentally unreadable' and yet also 'my first work in my own style'."

It is a rare Saturday that this blogger can to sit on the porch with this old favorite book, and slow down enough to read it in a new way. If you don't a copy of the Waves, ride your bike to the library or check Amazon. they have many copies at true bargain prices here.

Helen Gallagher

Do you measure up online?

We used to measure our popularity and successful relationships by the number of friends we had; those who exchanged birthday cards, met for lunch, sat on the front porch on a summer night. now, though, our friends are measured by the activity in our social media sites.

We measure our business success perhaps by a fully booked calendar, making large bank deposits from speaking gigs and book sales, or signing contracts for lucrative freelance writing.

Who knew that today's mark of "Success" is defined instead by social media? How many followers are enough to make you popular? If you have more social media traffic, are you inclined to make more frequent posts?? Is it an effective way for you to keep in touch with close friends?

A recent Writer's Digest article posted counts for notable pageviews for writers trying to prove they have a decent following for their work.

Notable numbers are high, starting with:

Blog page views: 20,000/month 
Twitter followers: 5,000 followers or newsletter subscribers
Speaking appearances to 1,000 people per year
Book sales total:  4,000 for self-published nonfiction, 2,000 for fiction


By those standards, most of us are lurkers - reading just the blogs and Facebook/twitter feeds we can scan in a few minutes.

Don't take it too seriously though. It's summer, and we know where our real friends are - out on the porch, reading a good book.

Just for fun

This from the Chicago Tribune:



They're just joking about The Weather Channel's (TWC) bold idea to begin naming storms, like the National Weather Channel does.  Now, if I can only get them to change it to ...

Winter storm Helen, author of Release Your Writing !!

NANOWRIMO launches today

Today is the beginning of National Novel Writers Month. If you're new to the concept of NANOWRIMO, a gigantic month of speed writing, visit nanowrimo.org and you’ll see this is for real. A month dedicated to starting or working on an existing writing project. It doesn’t have to be a novel, but a commitment to write every day for the month of November.

By signing up (free) at NANOWRIMO, you’ll be able to log in daily and track the words you’ve written. The goal, of course, is to write a draft of a novel in 30 days, approximately 50,000 words. Think its impossible? You’re wrong. And the motivation is nearly irresistible. You’re accountable only to yourself, and by logging in to track your words, you are setting a goal for yourself to at least try to write every day for the whole month.  You write on your own computer, not online, so your work stays private.
Thousands of participants have enjoyed this worldwide event, making it great fun. Sign up, log in when you write, and the system tracks your word count toward your goal.


So if you need a kick in the keyboard, get going. This is your month to make a difference.

Helen

Sweetest Book Mobile ever

Possibly the sweetest book mobile in the world!

source: “Biblioburro,” Luis Soriano Bohorquez, La Gloria, Colombia.

(click to enlarge)

Who do you write like?

Thanks to Brenda at Off-Campus Writers Workshop for suggesting this site. You paste in a couple paragraphs of your writing and the software compares your writing to a famous author. It's fun - give it a try at I Write Like.

See link at right, which you can also paste into your blog.

Have fun with this!
Helen

Why authors need a sense of humor

The Onion, America's best satirical journal, has a funny article on the exaggerated realities of author book signings:
http://www.theonion.com/articles/author-promoting-book-gives-it-her-all-whether-its,19985/

My upcoming events are at Book Tour.com -- I'll save you a seat ....

Cheers,
Helen Gallagher

Favorite quotes for today

Two very different quotes are making me happy today:

"We are what we repeatedly do. 

Excellence, therefore, is not an act but a habit." 

 Aristotle   

"Diplomacy is the art of saying 'Nice Doggie' until you can find a rock."

Will Rogers  

Improve your writing with better words and a handy phrase counter

A few years ago my presentations to writers included a demo of Visual Thesaurus. Its great to take a step back and analyze our writing. Liven up your next editing session by using the Visual Thesaurus to find a better word for "ordinary."

And now, thanks to the Phrase Frequency Counter from writewords.uk, you'll never waste time editing out all the redundant, useless language you use when filling a first draft of an article, essay or manuscript.

We all know how to say things the long way, but we can learn to be precise, crisp, and effective, instead of voluminous, clumsy, and wordy.

Write your way through a snow day!

No school, no work, no errands, so write your way through the day.

As long as you have heat, and electricity to power your gadgets, relax into today's blizzard and use the time to move your writing along:

1. Write an essay, poem, or letter to the editor of your local newspaper about the magic of a "snow day."
2. Call a friend or family member, because you have the luxury of time to chat today.
3. Look up magazine submission guidelines and write a good query for an article. This might be the day you get a paying assignment.
4. Got a current writing project that just isn't moving? Sit down with it and see what you can do - delete, edit, shake it up, and get it moving ahead.

Stay safe and enjoy the day.

Helen Gallagher

Wish I'd said that...

Thought you would enjoy this. Sorry I don't know the source of this quote:

"I WENT TO A BOOKSTORE AND ASKED THE SALESWOMAN,
"WHERE'S THE SELF- HELP SECTION?" 
SHE SAID IF SHE TOLD ME, IT WOULD DEFEAT THE PURPOSE."

Release Your Writing blog status

It's official. This Release Your Writing blog, started in 2007 has now surpassed my Computer Clarity tech blog, started in 2004... way back before you even knew what a blog was.

Now, this Release Your Writing blog is 314 hits away from reaching 10,000. The person who takes it over that mark gets a free copy of my newest book: Blog Power & Social Media Handbook. 

Happy Clicking and here's to a thriving 2011 for you.

A Snow Day!

How lovely to have a snow day for writers. Pile up the writing magazines, books, and polish up a draft article or story.
Lest the weather get you down, I'm reprinting a timely poem, courtesy of my favorite Irish pub, The Celtic Knot in Evanston:

 

"I heard a bird sing

In the dark of December.

A magical thing

And sweet to remember.

 

'We are nearer to Spring

Than we were in September,'

I heard a bird sing

In the dark of December."

            ~Oliver Herford

NaNoWriMo makes Op-Ed page in New York Times

Hello, all you ambitious NaNoWriMo participants. You're almost half-way through the month, slogging through a sea of words. Today's New York Times has a cute op-end titled "Word After Word After Word," and since you're too busy writing to read teh newspaper, I'll delivery the salient points here:

NaNoWriMo started in 1999 with 21 participants and has grown into an enormoius non-profit helping people burst free of inhibitions and work with a common deadline. Your group has now produced almost a billion words, nearing the 2009 total of almost 2.5 billion.

Last year, slightly more than 19 percent of NaNoWriMo writers made it to the finish line.

As the Times piece says:

"This is the lovely thing about language. We all get to use it, and use it reasonably well, and words are so easily recycled. ... In NaNoWriMo, the talented and inexperienced, the experienced and  untalented, and all of the rest, can use as many words as they want, knowing that we will never run out and not one will be wasted."

Write on,

Helen

September: What happened to your summer goals?

September is here and summer is winding down. Have you moved along on your writing goals? Have you had the time you need to follow through?

If not, here's your motivation: GET IT DONE is NAIWE’s 2010 Summer Challenge.

Visit NAIME.com

The folks at NAIME, National Association of Independent Writers and Editors, offer a challenge to take this summer to learn, grow, and get ready for a busy and successful autumn. There are three parts to the challenge:

1. Read three books that will stretch your mind and inspire your creative spirit.
2. Finish one project that’s been nagging at you for longer than you care to admit.
3. Brainstorm a new project that will bring you an additional stream of income, then take the first step to make it happen.

My goals for the Get It Done challenge are:

1. I'm on book two of the three I committed to reading. The first was The Wealthy Freelancer.

2. After attending a conference in July, I haven't kept my goal of querying one editor each week. I'm back on track now with this.

3. Additional income is easy for any writer with the power of ebooks. I'm issuing a new one in September, and one more by the end of the year. Writing an article for an online marketing is also feasible. It might be an easy goal for you to tackle too. In August, I've had $150 in extra revenue with quick sales to these markets.

Best writing of a bad sentence

A sentence comparing a kiss to the sucking of a very thirsty gerbil has won Seattle-based novelist Molly Ringle the world's worst writing contest. Ringle, who says she only writes bad fiction when she fails at good fiction, took the Bulwer-Lytton prize for the opening sentence to the worst of all possible novels yesterday with:

"For the first month of Ricardo and Felicity's affair, they greeted one another at every stolen rendezvous with a kiss – a lengthy, ravenous kiss, Ricardo lapping and sucking at Felicity's mouth as if she were a giant cage-mounted water bottle and he were the world's thirstiest gerbil."

Courtesy: Maggie Ball, CompulsiveReader.com

Giving in to blow-out card...

The fantasy: A year of Vogue magazine and an attractive bag. Not jut an ordinary tote bag, but what looked like a Vogue-ish big red textured leather bag. Big enough for my books, journal and notebook computer. How could I not.

The reality: Said bag arrived not in a handsome box via UPS but in an envelope - not even 9 x 12 - just a 6 inch envelope. Unless there's such a thing as inflatable leather, I'm about to be disappointed. The bag turns out to be vinyl [yes, I know... was I really expecting leather via blow-out card?] Yes, I was, but not $400 Vogue-leather, but maybe $40 Target or Kohl's .... And unlike the blow-out card deception, the bag is a very dorky size - like Easter purses in the 1950's.

So now I'm saddled with a year of Vogue - which, if you're not a fan of high fashion, is generally about 60 pages of full-color glossy ads before you even get to the Table of Contents. There are then about three decent articles among 200+ pages of expensive photo shoots, outrageous models, wearing "the season's all-important new braid," and eye makeup that would embarrass a Bird of Paradise.

You won't see the bag any time soon. I talked my sister into taking it to store her paintbrushes and art supplies.

Sisters: An Anthology, radio clips

If you were unable to attend our Celebration of Sisters event at The Book Stall on Saturday, we have an upcoming Sisters: An Anthology salon scheduled with the Women's Exchange. Date will be posted as details are worked out.

For a treat, in the interim, enjoy this brief audio clip from WFCR Radio
http://www.wfcr.org/