The Writers Daily

This is a quick post today. If you are like me and don’t have the time to read every reader newspaper (ezeen) that you receive then check out TK Richardson’s The Writers Daily. All of the major events and happenings in the writer community are covered. Articles include:

• Headlines
• Art & Entertainment
• Stories

• Technology

• Education

• Business

• Leisure

• #amwriting

• #wdborders

The last two topics are for Twitter users. Speaking of Twitter I just joined and am trying to figure out how to display Twitter feeds on my blog, any help in this area is appreciated.

TK and several of her friends work hard to bring the best writer’s news to your doorstep. If you are not subscribed to this ezeen then now is the time to join.

Dark Jenny

(Did I mention she also covers book reviews) 

 

bookgasm.com - Ah, once again, we meet the inestimable sword jockey Eddie LaCrosse in DARK JENNY, Alex Bledsoe’s third installment of the LaCrosse fantasy noir saga. The series is tons of fun with the main charac...

Hold the line folks. I noticed that I have had my 2000th view of my blog…wait now it’s 2001…if only I had that many followers.


If you can raed this tehn you are sdinantg too csole to yuor mntoior.

Does your novels first sentence hide subliminal messages?

Fun: If you can read this you join a group comprising 55% of every 100 readers. This exercise demonstrates that the human mind reads/translates whole words instead of individual letters. You can try this out at home. The first and last letter must be correct. Your mind will unscramble the remaining letters to make sense of the word.
 Cna yuo raed tihs? Olny 55 plepoe out of 100 can.




i cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg.

The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at

Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno't mtaetr in waht oerdr the ltteres in a

wrod are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be

in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed

it whotuit a pboerlm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed

ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Azanmig huh? yaeh and

I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt!

I wonder what a query letter in this format would look like. I bet the agent would be shocked...he, he, he.


What can a novel’s first sentence tell you about your protagonist?


Here is mine from my manuscript, MYSTERIOUS GIFT:

Twenty-first birthdays are memorable events in every girl’s life—Jen’s was no exception—it was a complete disaster.


This sentence tells a lot about my protagonist. I count seven different facts. Can you spot others?

Analysis:

• The protagonist is 21 years old.

• BD’s are supposed to be happy events.

• She has expectations that her BD will be unforgettable.

• The protagonist is feminine.

• Her name is Jen.

• Jen’s BD will be etched in her mind forever.

• The outcome of this once in a lifetime day wasn’t what she hoped for.

Wow, a single well crafted sentence at the beginning of your novel is a powerful means of revealing additional information, about your main character, to your reader. The original sentence uses eighteen words vice the sixty-one words needed to explain your hidden edits. I added forty-three extra words into the mind of the reader.

Think of it this way. I edited my first sentence by cutting forty-three words. I call this Hidden Editing. I wanted the information to be presented however; I wanted my first sentence to be as short and revealing as possible.

How does your first sentence save space on paper and at the same time tell more?

Can swap words help your writing?

One writing tip I learned is not to use the same word repeatedly within a hundred words of each other much less within a single paragraph.


Sometimes it is hard, especially when using your protagonist’s name. This is where pronouns help. Words such as him, her, she, he, you, them, it, ours, who, which, and I can be used to replace a noun (persons name). Depending on the tense of your writing (first or third person) you can even use pronouns to replace pronouns—her for she, him for he or me for I.

Another way to substitute words is to use the Thesaurus and find a synonym for the speech you want to replace. A synonym is a word meaning the same as another. Most word processors have a dictionary and Thesaurus. In Microsoft Word simply hover your cursor over the word, right click it and you are presented with the option of looking its definition up or checking to see the synonyms. As an example: hover your cursor over this word simple. The synonyms are—easy, straightforward, uncomplicated, trouble-free, undemanding, effortless and plane. Choose the word that best fits your sentence and substitute it for your overused word.

What do you do if a word has no synonyms? This is where a good dictionary comes in handy. Hints often arise for alternate language or phrases simply by reading its definition. Sometimes you can substitute a written expression with a showing statement. For example, say your protagonist has a cold and coughs a lot during a scene. Instead of using the word cough, try something like; his stomach shuddered as he tried to catch his breath.

How do you deal with the overuse of words in close proximity to each other?

If it weren’t for Bad Luck I would have any luck at all.

Poor writing does not emanate from a broken quill but from an untrained mind./edf 2011

What is Bad Luck? Is it something you earn on your own merits or is it dealt out at birth? Do you consider a rejections Bad Luck (BL) and continue sending out query letters.

I define BL as an unplanned setback. In the past two months, I experienced a trio of BL. First, my windmill—my only source of water—broke the gears in its motor. It took me three days to find and put up a pump-jack; water again flowed. Second, I had the gasman add one hundred gallons of propane to my outside tank. The valve failed and within two days, my tank was dry. This took place during the coldest snap of this winter season. Temperatures dropped down to minus nine and I lived inside the house huddled next to my fireplace. When the gasman returned he found a screw that needed tightening and refilled the tank. Heat filled the house again. The next day I heard water running and discovered that two pipes in the ceiling of my downstairs bedroom burst, collapsing the ceiling and soaking everything in sight. I fixed the damaged pipes and had water inside the house again.

Three unexpected setbacks that ended with positive results (well fixed, heat restored and water running). I look on rejection letters as positive information. They whisper two things to me, the agent did not think my manuscript was a fit for her or my query letter needs tweaking. Weighing the rejection letter in one hand and my passion for my writing in the other the obvious answer is to draft another query letter. How do you handle rejection letter?

How do your Writing Habits affect your Novel?

When I first take the weight off my feet to write a scene or chapter I find that I can quickly churn out 1500 to 2000 words.They might be great words—they might be horrible words—taking up space on a book page. For me the important thing is that I had an idea for a place for something to happen in my book and wrote it down. I read over what I wrote, take mental notes, turn off the computer and think about until the next day.


The first thing I do when I turn on my computer again is to read the events leading up to my new scene to see if it flows in a logical progression (one scene to the next). After that, I reread my previous days writing, flesh out the conflict/action and catastrophe (if any) and mentally move to my next action. I find that I usually add another 100 to 200 hundred words every time I do this. This process lasts about three days before I am satisfied and move on to the next scene.

How do you tackle scene or chapter writing? Do you first motor through to the end of your book, go back and edit or do you attack each scene/chapter, one at a time?

Writers Quote, for inspiration:”It is my goal to one day write a novel that every reader I’ve ever had feels is the best thing I’ve ever written.” By award winning author Nicholas Sparks

Twenty agents eager for your manuscripts.

Agent Query has done it again. This month’s newsletter is chocked full of great articles on writing including a list of 20 agents looking for new manuscripts/writers.

It's January and the publishing industry is back in session! Agents are busy pitching to publishing editors and on the hunt for new, fresh manuscripts to sell, sell, sell. That means the first month of the year is one of the best times to query agents—and querying new agents, junior agents, and associate agents at veteran agencies is one of the smartest strategies to help an aspiring writer snag an agent.

For this reason, we've pulled together a list of over 20 literary agents at some of the most elite, established agencies—Victoria Sanders & Associates, Andrea Brown Literary Agency, J A Bberwocky Literary Agency, Nancy Coffee Literary Media and more—who are actively building their clients lists. Just remember: you only have one-shot to capture an agent's attention, so make sure you check out our industry-approved, top Google ranked "How to Write a Query Letter" guide in order to ensure your 250-word query letter is all SHAZZZZZzam! with zero flow-fizzzzzle.

Tip of the day from Bree Ogden of Martin Literary Management

Start marketing yourself right now. Use the Internet in every way possible. Get your name out there. Build a powerful blog and get a following. Join writers' groups. Get beta readers. Join sites like inkpop.com. Attend writers' conferences. Do your research. There are so many tools to help you achieve your goal. You just have to really really want it. This isn't a process you can rush through. You have to fine-tune everything before you move on to the next step in the business

What do you see happening with e-Books this year?

Michael Hyatt is the Chairman and CEO of Thomas Nelson Publishers, the largest Christian publishing company in the world and the seventh largest trade book publishing company in the U.S. His answer to this question appears below and is worth reading. I subscribe to his RSS feed and have learned a lot about creating and improving my writing skills.

Welcome! If you find this page useful, you might want to subscribe to the RSS feed for my updates. You may also want to follow me on Twitter.

I don’t know exactly how things will shake out long-term, but I believe we will see the following six trends in 2011:

1. Bundled Books. Some publishers have experimented with this, including my company. However, I believe it will happen in earnest this year. The major e-tailers will make it possible for you to buy different kinds of e-bundles at a discount—a bundle of the same book in both print and e-formats; a bundle of of one author’s complete library or most popular titles; or a bundle of several titles on a particular topic.

2. Social Reading. I have seen several concept demos of this already. (Here’s one.) But this is the year it will be widely implemented. Imagine hosting a digital discussion group, inviting a dozen friends or co-workers and being able to see one another’s highlights, comments, and questions—and reply to them. This interaction could happen in preparation for the group meeting or in place of it.

3. e-Book Clubs. With over a million new books published in 2009 (the last stats we have), we are awash in content. We need curators more than ever. A single editor or a panel of them will pick the best of the best. Since it is all done electronically, readers will choose the frequency in which they receive new titles. Just like the book clubs of yesteryear, etailers will give them an e-book bundle in exchange for a commitment to purchase a specific number of titles at a special membership discount.

4. e-First Publishing. We are already seeing this, of course. But again, I think the trend will accelerate—especially since 19 of the top 50 books in 2010 sold more e-copies than print. Publishers will see this as a way of reducing risk and testing the market. The print copy will be manufactured for those who prefer them (still the majority of readers) or printed on demand for those who want a souvenir.

5. Free e-Readers. E-tailers will do this as a premium for readers who buy bundles or join e-book clubs. Or they might provide a dramatic discount to induce the next segment of holdouts to try digital reading. More and more the dedicated reader will be seen as a commodity, just like razors are to razor blades. In the near-term, expect to see the major e-Readers drop below $100.

6. Monetization Experiments. We will begin to see publishers try new ways of monetizing content. This will include in-book advertising (or commercial-free for a premium), sponsored links, subscription delivery, and even all-you-can-read options for one price. Most of the infrastructure for this already exists. It’s just a matter of someone capitalizing on it.

 Tell me what your thoughts are concerning the future of eBooks.