A Writer's Edge

Socializing for Success

2009-07-05T09:14:00.000-07:00

“Success is not an automatic function of individual talent,” Malcolm Gladwell wrote in Outliers: The Story of Success. “It’s bound up in so many other broader circumstantial, environmental, historical, and cultural factors.” In other words, as I've said for years, it is blind, dumb, random luck, too. That aspect of the writing life, especially for a freelancer, may be the most frightening part. Success depends not only on your hard work, discipline and goal-setting, but also on circumstances, lifestyles and culture. The publishing industries (book, magazine, digital) are in turmoil, in a difficult state of transitions. Many prognosticate, but no one knows what the future holds for publishers, writers, and the final products.

To guarantee failure, insulate yourself against contemporary trends and innovations. Avoid social media and ignore what younger writers are up to. Pay no attention to predictions and new gadgets. Hide in your closet and plunk away on your Olivetti.

I admit I've dragged my heels about adopting some changes (other times I'm on the cutting edge, the often-irritated but enthusiastic beta tester). Every time I jump into something I resisted, however, I am sorry I waited so long. One goal this month is to accept Deb Sistrunk's invitation to join Facebook, now that I feel I have some control of my Twittering. (Is there a 12-Step group for Twitterdicts?) For Twitter, I have Lori Widmer to thank for luring me there and Steve Eisenberg for kicking me into the pool.

Later this month, I'll see Steve at a Meetup of the SDBloggers, mostly "kids", billed as a "Know Your Roots" event sponsored by Pathway Genomics (get it--roots-genomics?) That gathering is on the same evening the the SDPEN group of editors meet to rack up recipes for success, but before the SDWriters/Editors Guild meets to plan a 30th anniversary party. Oh, I almost forgot the other end of this writing cycle--I still need to read The Reader for my book club meeting this week!

The purpose of posting my social media business meeting calendar is to demonstrate a way of creating a cultural and environmental history, a lifestyle if you wish, to increase chances of stumbling into those circumstances in which hard work and discipline pay off by helping you succeed in reaching writing goals. So, come out of the closet and participate in the writing life around you.

Happy Independence Day

2009-07-04T09:03:00.000-07:00

Happy Birthday U.S.A. "...the land of the free, and the home of the brave"

Cat Book Reviewer Dilemma

2009-07-04T01:57:00.000-07:00

HALP! get me down I is ten stories up

Nostalgia is in Fashion

2009-07-03T08:57:00.000-07:00

Garrison Keillor has a bookstore in Saint Paul, MN where Carlsbad, CA resident, Daniel Van Tassel (below) last month signed his book about boyhood in Minnesota.

Last night I watched a PBS special on Keillor. He mused about his early ambition to become a New Yorker (magazine and city) writer, his chosen geographic relocations and settling back in Minnesota, where he began. I felt such kinship, we are the same age, raised as Midwestern Lutherans, and longed for similar writing careers. We even both began in our respective universities' radio stations, him at the UM reading continuity that I went to NU to learn to write. What is more uncanny, I never made it to the microphones at WNUR, and the UM's transmitter was off the air (but they didn't know it). Our early voices went unheard.

I moved more times than Keillor, but he achieved his New York dream, briefly. Mine was just to have a normal life, but possibly that's an illusion. Now I've embraced living in California, while he has managed to go home again (take that Thomas Wolfe!) Keillor accepts, as he calls it, an ordinary life and he says he finds it good enough. He has the extended family to support him in that choice. I could not determine if he sounded wistful and resigned or at peace with himself at last.

And here in Cali, doncha know, I met someone originally from Minnesota, embarking on a nostalgia tour back there to promote a memoir of "Life in the Heartland at Mid-Century". Back to Barron, by Daniel Van Tassel, delights the Boomer generation no end with true tales of farm life, town trips to Lake Wobegones as well as the big city and all the trouble little boys can get into.

If you're over 60 and still living in the Midwest, you'll chuckle at the memories. If you're over 60 and living somewhere else, you'll chuckle at the memories and perhaps heave a little sigh of sad fondness or relief--your choice, or your luck.

Social Profile Advice

2009-07-02T05:10:00.000-07:00

To join a social site first you fill out a Profile. Before you see how the site works, how personal information is displayed, entering it is mandatory. It's scary, especially without a reassurance that you can change it later or delete the account at the worst. (I have a few empty profiles floating about in cyberspace, and one very frustrating important one I can't get changed, grr!)

Gloria Hess, writing in the Northwestern Alumni Association blog, offers tips for using a LinkedIn profile for job hunting. She says, "Professional networking sites work two ways: they make it easier to connect with new contacts and colleagues, and they increase your visibility to everyone online—including recruiters and hiring managers. With this in mind, you should polish your profile to ensure that your online image is the most professional and effective in promoting your 'brand.'"

You can read the details at Career Coach Offers Expert “LinkedIn” Profile Advice | Northwestern Alumni Association. Hess' suggestions include:

Have another set of eyes review it.
Be sure you are accurately representing yourself.
Double-check your spelling and grammar.
Make sure your branding is clear and targeted.
Be selective in what you choose to showcase and how you showcase it.

There's that word again, "branding". I hope I can coax Hess into contributing a piece on how to apply the "brand" concept to freelance work.

Freelance in Troubled Times

2009-07-01T07:55:00.000-07:00

Economic Downturn. Recession. Mini-depression. Bonanza! How can the self-employed be overworked? I haven't time to figure that out. I'm too busy juggling projects and fielding queries from new clients. Apparently I'm not alone. According to a poll at FreelanceSwitch that asked, "How Has Economic Downturn Affected Your Business?" visitors responded (as of this writing):

Business is slow, but I'm managing 35% (56 votes)

My freelance business has failed 10% (16 votes)

I'm doing as well as I was before 28% (45 votes)

Business is booming! 26% (42 votes)

Joel Falconer notes:

While it’s true that recent events have made making a living harder for many people who put themselves in the self-employed or freelance category, many freelancers are finding that business is as good as ever.

If you land in the first two categories, however, you might want to register with that site's directory and/or search through the job listings board.

A few musings on why some writers may be finding more work: as other people lose jobs, many turn to writing a book or have time to finish one (and need editing help or publishing guidance); companies that laid off writers must now outsource jobs to freelancers; former employees decide to strike out on their own with new businesses, new resumes and online businesses--all of which need copy written and edited; and already-established authors are anxious to expand or establish new websites to draw more customers.

Where is my Vote?

2009-06-30T18:54:00.000-07:00

#FreeIran
Better late than never!

Citing Electronic Sources

2009-06-30T09:25:00.000-07:00

"Cite Your Sites" first popped into mind. Cute. Dumb SEO. Clever wordplay. All of the above. This proposed title is a nice play on rhyming words and the cliché "set your sights," but it would confuse search engines and not help people looking for information on the title used.

Paula Offutt's comment about the lame Anderson Plagiarism Apology prompted this post. Anderson's lame claim was that plagiarism in his recent book resulted from an inability to find a way to cite electronic sources. Such information is available in any style manual. Finding the citation styles online for free is another matter. Presumably Anderson can afford to own current copies of all style guides. Where was the publisher's editor in all this? What about a fact checker? It is difficult to check facts with no sources cited.

If you don't understand about citing sources at all, read the information on the Long Island University (C.W. Post Campus) Library web page on Citations. I particularly like:

Use this rule of thumb: If you knew a piece of information before you started doing research, generally you do not need to credit it. You also do not need to cite well-known facts, such as dates, which can be found in many encyclopedias. All other information such as quotations, statistics, and ideas should always be cited in your papers.

Advice on which style to use, Citation Style for Research Papers, also applies to nonacademic articles and books:

# APA: psychology, education, and other social sciences.
# MLA: literature, arts, and humanities.
# AMA: medicine, health, and biological sciences.
# Turabian: designed for college students to use with all subjects.
# Chicago: used with all subjects in the 'real world' by books, magazines, newspapers, and other non-scholarly publications.

This all reminds me to write on Site vs. Cite vs. Sight.

Serious Summer Reading

2009-06-29T06:31:00.000-07:00

The vicious cycle of book reviewing brought serious summer reading this year. I'll spend the season dipping into the rich, dense Wendy Doniger compendium The Hindus: An Alternative History.

A much smaller, more painful one to read is Andrew Levy's A Brain Wider Than the Sky: A Migraine Diary. I had suspected I'd had migraines until menopause, but reading about them seems to be bringing them back--at least while I'm vicariously experiencing Levy's rough ride. His search for a solution brings resolution of his relationship with a painful Other living within his head.

Not quite as dense as THE HINDUS, but equally fascinating, is a fictionalized view of the beginnings of Islam. Mother of the Believers: A Novel of the Birth of Islam by Kamran Pasha, tells the story through the eyes of "Aisha, the youngest and most beloved wife of the Prophet." Although the author's first novel, it is the product of a successful Pakistani-American Hollywood screenwriter, contributing to lush descriptions and intense characterizations that make this one closer to a "beach read."

But wait, there's more! I'm running out of room to mention :

The Rose of Sebastopol by Katharine McMahon
Happy Trails to You: Stories by Julie Hecht
Kinky Gazpacho: Life, Love & Spain by Lorie Tharps

The first two are rather dreary fiction, and the third--what can I say? A crazy, mixed-up black girl grows up in the vanilla Midwest, never happy with her self-imposed succession of identities until she finds out that slavery flourished in Spain. Huh?

These books were published by The Penguin Press, Simon & Schuster, Putnam and Washington Square Press.

Then vs. Than

2009-06-28T08:23:00.000-07:00

Do you confuse then and than? They look and sound alike, but for one letter. That suggests a lack of basic vocabulary knowledge of word meanings. Try to keep in mind that then involves a sequence in time, while than involves a comparison:

Jane threw the ball farther than Dick did.
Then Dick threw Jane down the well.

According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, than functions as a preposition or a conjunction, indicating a difference, while then works three jobs: adverb, noun and adjective, all of them involving a temporal aspect (time), including a use meaning "besides" or "in addition".

Writers Eat Absinthe Now

2009-06-27T06:44:00.000-07:00

Absinthe Mints

Absinthe is a strong, herb-infused, alcoholic beverage that was extremely popular with artists and authors in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Due to its green color and purported hallucinogenic qualities, it is often referred to as “The Green Fairy.”

Available from the inimitable Archie McPhee website.

Anderson Plagiarism Apology

2009-06-26T17:23:00.000-07:00

Sounds like a lackapologica! Chris Anderson accused after lifting passages for 'free' | theBookseller.com:

'All those are my screw-ups after we decided not to run notes as planned, due to my inability to find a good citation format for web sources'.

How pitifully lame.

Writer Resource Roundup

2009-06-26T06:59:00.000-07:00

If you're a freelancer in Canada or one who works for Canadian clients, you may be confused about what to charge or what pay to expect. The writers.ca • find a professional writer in canada site can help you out. It offers useful information for all freelancers, including sections on professional practices and copyrights.

Have a book for sale on Amazon.com? Are you participating in whatever they call their authors' blogs--a good marketing move. Another, more hidden, bonus is the Amazon Vine™ Program, which "enables a select group of Amazon customers to post opinions about new and pre-release items to help their fellow customers make educated purchase decisions. Customers are invited to become Amazon Vine™ Voices based on the trust they have earned in the Amazon community for writing accurate and insightful reviews."

Who doesn't need more pictures to choose from? Shareapic - The pic sharing site that gives back! is a newer resource. I intend to join because of the front page tease (ignoring all the exclamation points):

We pay $0.22 per 1000 pic views.. that's more than some major ad networks pay their publishers!
- We allow you to add your Bidvertiser © code to your image and gallery pages.
- We pay out within 30 days!
- One click posting to Facebook, Myspace, Blogger, Orkut, and more!

Now, it's back to the cat race.

1900 Posts on Writing

2009-06-25T08:29:00.000-07:00

1900 posts on writing in the Archives--this log in info greeted me today. Thanks to hypertext, they're mostly all searchable by good engines. A post doesn't need have the label of the search keyword, either. I try to keep up with advances in search technology suitable for use with and on a blog. That's the reason the engine of choice at the top of the posts' column on the blog page changes with annoying frequency. I am not impressed with Bing, and I haven't seen a "personal" version available.

AWE Tweet Chats Coming?

2009-06-24T08:38:00.000-07:00

I may miss the #editorchat on Twitter tonight. [Is that faint cheering in the background?] I'm running off to the fair. After days in deep "edit brain" mode, my body needs a little fun, junk food, seeing plants, touching animals, and time spent with a close friend.

One reason why I joined the chats for editors and attend via TweetChat.com, was to try out the activity with a thought of holding one for writers. Of course, the hundreds of you who tag along in MyBlogLog, BlogCatalog, RSS Readers, via email (blog and Inspiration) will need to have Twitter accounts--but not necessarily to Follow me or to reveal your identities. I also signed up with another service that provides private chat rooms and, of course, there's always the much less secure chat services provided by MSN, Yahoo, Google and Orkut.

Anita Campbell summed up the advantages and features nicely in a post on the Online Media Network The Cool New Way to Network on Twitter:

The benefits of tweetchats are many. They bring together people with similar interests. You can crowd-source ideas. You can carry on a group discussion in context – and using the right tool – “see” the full conversation uninterrupted by unrelated tweets.

What do you think? Would you like to have A Writer's Edge Chats? What form appeals most: general gabfests, directed conversations, specific topics, a mixture? Or about which subjects would you like to have a chat with me, other writers and maybe editors, agents, publishers?

Leave suggestions in comments, or send cards and letters (email).

Monetize Your Blogs

2009-06-23T08:50:00.000-07:00

Who wants to make money with a blog? Hands up all around. No matter if you blog just to prime the creative pump, to keep in touch or to market another product--most everyone would like for the blog to at least pay for itself. The simplest goal might be to obtain a return on the time spent posting.

The latest scheme I've heard is Bloggapedia's syndication plan, wherein a blogger would receive 30% of 30% of a minimal amount every time someone downloads A Writer's Edge to a mobile device. Do you want to read blogs on your phone? I'm doubtful, but I could be very wrong and miss the boat with this one.

Other more tested strategies include hosting advertising on your blog site. I prefer outrightly selling ad space over installing AdSense or one of the other pay-per-click ~~scams~~ plans. When you sell straight ad space, you get paid up front and only need to display the advertising as agreed. Get that? YOU GET PAID. First. Period. In God We Trust; All Others Pay Cash.

Nonetheless, if you're intent on taking the easy way, joining blog networks is another option. They make money by distributing advertising across networks of website properties, sharing earnings with site owners, based on the amount of traffic generated. For your blog to qualify, it needs to have a good visitor rate, display fresh specific content and you must keep up the pace of posting. Networks you can explore include:

451Press -- http://www.451press.com/

9rules --http://9rules.com/

B5Media -- http://www.b5media.com/

BeautyBlog Network -- http://www.beautyblognetwork.com/

Curbed Network -- http://curbed.com/advertise/contact.php

Glam Media -- http://www.glam.com/

SBNation -- http://www.sbnation.com/

SkinnyMoose -- http://skinnymoose.com/network/

Weblogs Inc --http://www.weblogsinc.com/

New Novel Lengths

2009-06-22T08:10:00.000-07:00

Do you want to be indulged or to be published? Too often the queries I receive about editing a novel include the sad information that "it will be an easy job, because it's only 72,000 words long." I feel ethically-bound to refuse the work or, at the very least, alert the writer that the manuscript needs bulking up. Even more frequently clients tell me, "I know it's a little long at 140,000 words, but I already edited it down from 210,000, and I just can't take any more out!"

That is a more hopeful situation because copyediting will reduce even a fairly well-written story by at least 10 percent. Any good editor can find subplots or scenes to cut, "tightening up" the writing. Overwriting is a common problem for writers with less experience. That's one reason why I encourage new writers to blog and why I'm excited (to a lesser degree) about the feature of Twitter that forces brevity. (Unfortunately, Twitter-talk also induces a habit of dropping articles (a, the) and other niceties of good writing.)

I looked for recent information from an authoritative source concerning novel lengths. Literary agent Michelle Brower included a point on it in the Wendy Sherman Associates blog. The post earlier this month contains query tips from her experience on a panel at the Backspace Conference:

Nearly all of the queries I looked at in the workshop were clocking in at or above 120,000 words. That is almost always too long, and makes me think you haven't edited enough. I think an appropriate length for most adult commercial fiction is between 75,000 and 100,000, and YA is between 60,00 and 80,000. Literary fiction usually is harder to pin down; it just has to be super special.

I see a creeping concision taking place in acceptable lengths for novels. I'll have to retool my mouth to stop parroting, "80 to 120 thousand words for a first novel".

"But, but ... Stephen King!" I hear some of you sputtering. Yes. And King already has an agent, a publisher and a long track record. When you're a rich and famous novelist, you, too, may write long, rambling masterpieces. For now, do you want to indulge yourself, or do you want to get published?

Blogger's Folly

2009-06-21T09:25:00.000-07:00

Before Blogger's Brain, comes Bloggers Folly, the most common cause of writers' deaths in the United States. (Third is Social Overload--same referenced post). Blogger's Folly occurs when bloggers, usually newbies, advise others on a subject with which they have little experience.

One of these incidents happened last week or so. A blogger, who appears never to have been otherwise published, expounded on something related to editing. Another editor commented that the blogger's points are invalid. I entered a comment supporting the other editor, and I added my views and a few suggestions for a more useful technique.

Apparently the blogger moderates comments. Mine has yet to show up. I know the system received it, because when I tried to enter it again, I received an error message that the same material had already been sent.

I asked yet a third writer/editor what she thought of the post, just in case my brain had been on hold when I wrote the comment. (It happens!) My experienced friend said:

What did you say? I think her recommendations are pretty terrible too, but one of the other commenters offered some good objections.

Here's the folly: not taking your lumps. It's O.K. to make a mistake. Being embarrassed and/or angry is natural. It's not acceptable to duck and run. That makes your writing junkjournalism--the worst kind. I would not be surprised to find the post or even the blog soon gone. The next person she does this to may not be so kind as not to out her.

Urban Shakespeare

2009-06-20T00:26:00.000-07:00

Shakespeare in the city!

Writing Valuable Content

2009-06-19T07:32:00.000-07:00

"Indispensable" was a feature of the Twitter #editorchat topic recently. I queried "like 'rich content'?" Now I find 6 Steps to Valuable Internet Content by Yann Gourvennec, originally published at BNET UK. I'd call the post indispensable reading for anyone serious about website/blog writing and about monetization of a site. Consider that

"...Marketers are now finally waking up to the idea that pre-formatted communications aren’t the right way to engage with customers...by valuable content? I mean content that brings value to your visitors, which could possibly initiate discussions, questions and comments (I’m talking about articulate comments, not cyber-babble)."

In short, the six "steps" are:

Step 1: Short text is a myth

Step 2: Spice up your text with images, not the other way round

Step 3: Hypertext, hypertext, hypertext

Step 4: Good content shows in the title

Step 5: Keywords mean a lot

Step 6: Writing with a reader in mind

Whether you're a content writer or writing content for your own promotion or marketing use, this article is a condensed learning experience (or a great reminder for some of us). The slide show version is from the article version at the Marketing & Innovation blog, a team effort which includes Yann Gourvennec.

6 steps to valuable Internet content

View more OpenOffice presentations from Yann Gourvennec.

Self-Publishing Success

2009-06-18T15:06:00.000-07:00

A self-published book, God's Thunderbolt: The Vigilantes of Montana, won the 2009 Spur Award for Best First Novel from the Western Writers of America, a prestigious national honor. Past Spur winners include Larry McMurtry for Lonesome Dove, Michael Blake for Dances With Wolves, Glendon Swarthout for The Shootist, and Tony Hillerman for Skinwalker. The author, Carol Buchanan, receives her award Saturday night at the group's annual convention.

As promised, I contacted Buchanan about this remarkable phenomenon and learned that she had not even attempted traditional publishing, although she is a traditionally published author of nonfiction books. Her insights into self-publishing will either encourage you or knock your socks off. Either way, she graciously shares valuable information and agreed to answer questions about her experience... Read the rest of the Interview With Carol Buchanan.

Lose and Loose

2009-06-18T09:07:00.000-07:00

This one makes me grind my teeth. See the NYT, Wednesday, June 17, "Black Swan Trader Bets on Inflation" jump to page C3, top left col, 6th graf down:

The strategy often either looses money or posts flat returns...

The writer didn't mean that the strategy loosens up money, either. This was a flat out proofreading failure, because the correct word is "loses". However, I see the words confused too often in writing from the youthful and ESLs.

What's the difference between "lose" and "loose", besides one "o"? Both are verbs, and "loose" is also an adjective, indicating free or freedom or unrestrained. Lose (pronounced looz) mainly means an inability to find or keep possession of and a lot of similar connotations. I think it is the long oh sound that confuses users. Both words oo in the middle. "Loose" ends with an ess sound, whereas "lose" ends with a zee sound.

You may lose your loose change through a hole in your pocket.

Does this help to remember the difference? See the man walking along, jingling coins in his pocket and the coins dribbling out from the cuff, scattering on the pavement? See me coming along picking them up? To lose coins, your bad luck. Loose coins, my treasure!

Endorsed Book Deals

2009-06-17T00:01:00.000-07:00

The second book I have endorsed has arrived in physical form, and I found my little blurb listed at the very top the first page of the book. Blow Us Away! won't be available from stores until the end of August. It's offered at Wind River Publishing for $16.95 and is well worth that price. Because I haven't reviewed this book yet, let me quote myself:

Writers who follow Howick's advice will greatly increase their probability of success, both in getting an agent and selling the manuscript to a publisher.
Georganna Hancock, M.S.

More good news: through a special arrangement with the publisher, only A Writer's Edge can advertise these two great deals. The first is for the paperback book at only $11.95 plus shipping: Blow Me Away! in paperback. The electronic version, Blow Me Away! eBook, is offered only to A Writer's Edge viewers for just $9.95.

If you are serious about wanting to get your book published, read what this publisher has to say. He tells you exactly what to do to please those involved with making your book a success. Want to get published? Then get Blow Me Away!

Social-Digital Books Coming

2009-06-16T07:40:00.000-07:00

Clive Thompson on the Future of Reading in a Digital World: "The technology is here. Book nerds are now working on XML-like markup languages that would allow for really terrific linking and mashups. Imagine a world where there's a URL for every chapter and paragraph in a book—every sentence, even."

I don't know whether to cheer or jeer.

This sounds like my introduction to mark up languages in general when I found an example of hypertext on a university site via a dumb terminal in the computer lab where I worked at SDSU. That was around 1991, pretty much pre-WWW. I was hyper over hypertext, although I didn't quite understand what it was and certainly didn't envision the what the web became.

Now I can't live without it. Even my emails are in html (hypertext markup language) and contain hot links.

Hyperbooks? I suppose ...

Misused Words Make Mary

2009-06-15T08:30:00.000-07:00

"I look forward to your incite on this," a client riotously wrote about manuscript changes. Does the erroneous word fit into one of the categories below? Perhaps an eggserroneous (anyone else a fan of the "Ernest..." movies)?

mondegreens not to be confused with collard greens See Lady Mondegreen.

malapropisms legacy of the lovely Mrs. Malaprop

spoonerisms -- named for Reverend Spooner, who would frequently transpose words or parts of words from one part of a sentence to another - with humerous [sic] results. A well known example, is the Reverend, after pronouncing a couple 'man and wife', saying "It is kisstomary to cuss the bride." (source not cited because of the embedded error)

eggcorns my favorite on toast points with Bearnaise sauce

Can anyone pinpoint the two type(s) of word choice errors in this post and any typos I may have inadvertently included? How about concocting a sentence using all four types of lip slips?