organization

August 29, 2012

Write to Pub Wednesday: Too busy to write? Roll with it for inspiration.

Do you ever feel that there isn’t enough time in the day to create, write, edit and tend to all of the people and responsibilities in your life?  Granted family comes first, and your friends do need your attention, but perhaps you procrastinate over writing because going for a drink with a pal calls to you louder than your manuscript revisions. Maybe your plot has pockmarks, akin to the holes I found in my story this week; but sorting old clothes or making the house look spotless, or doing homework with young Billy keeps you from focusing on your work in progress, and you feel you just can’t think. Has your creativity become lost in the noise of living?

Should we, as writers become removed from family, friends and necessary activities in order to get spark back into the story?

Not necessarily. Instead of trying to absent yourself from living your life,try to just go along with the flow and draw from the din of living the energy for your theme.

I had a lot to balance this week, and a ton of writing to accomplish, but felt my creativity dragging in the face of the mountain of work ahead of me that had nothing to do with writing. I thought, how am I going to have energy to create if by the time I can be alone with my thoughts, my head aches from the spin cycle? How to go about scribbling, yet include people, chores and activities between writing sessions without engaging the inner hermit? What I found this busiest of days, was that activities from research to meetings, preparing dinner, taking care of chores, nurturing family, and visiting with friends could add content to my writing.  As the hot afternoon smouldered into a warm evening and finally became a welcome cool night, I found it also crept into my head as ideas for my manuscripts.

Don’t get me wrong; some days the need to schedule time away from friends and embrace the hermit-self that wants to hide with the dust rhinos under the bed, or crawl under a bush somewhere to scribble in peace must be obeyed, but there comes a day to let family know they are the most important part of your life, but you must pencil in time to focus on your thoughts and pound a rhythm to release them on the keyboard or you will explode like an unpricked potato in a hot oven. But often, because this is real life and not a fantasy where you have all day to hit the idea board, it is more of a juggling act to balance all of the demands and joys of living with the tug of your creative, writer’s soul.

Instead of fighting the loved ones and the business of your life, try my experiment.

Instead of fighting for time to think separately about my storyline, I opted to roll with it and include everyone or incorporated many of the day’s activities into the tale. Short observations and fleeting ideas went into a small notebook kept nearby for that purpose. Bits of conversation, the lavender aroma of clean laundry, the glory in the bloom of a garden flower, smell of turned dirt, and the feel of moist earth between my fingers, color of cooked marinara sauce, all fed into ideas for my manuscripts. As evening fell and I carved out a peaceful moment to enjoy a glass of wine with a friend, I felt a certain ease of spirit that had been absent while I was trying to knock down the door of creativity. By the time I was able to sit down and hit the keys, there were several pages of quick notes as fodder for the work to come to jog my memory; ideas to draw from that put a real  sense of color, liveliness and passion into my writing.

So, yes, the day was crazy busy and time for contemplating writing had to be nurtured throughout its progress, yet no one had to go without clean socks, a hot meal, or a doctor visit  just so I could think about what to write. Now I know that it is possible to store both the din and the more pleasurable for later use when the actual scribbling time, the ass-in-chair moment presents itself. Instead of feeling overwhelmed by everything that needs to get done, like a donkey with an upset cart, I’m making the cart steadier by giving it new wheels.

So just roll with it. Live it, breathe it, fell and touch your busy life and those places and fine folk, and even drags who populate it. Take note of what the day holds for you as a writer. The notebook will keep the thoughts present until you have your free time, and the results may surprise you by enriching your writing, just as all of the perceived noises have moments that enrich your life.

Cheers!

C.K. Garner

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August 12, 2012

Shopping Out Your E-Book: Are you covered?

Hi Writers!

I discovered an interesting surprise today. Many of you are aware that my first E-Book, Stealing Time released just two days ago. A friend told me yesterday that it was up on Amazon. This seems obvious, I know, but I was paying attention to sales from my publishing company’s site rather than thinking about other venues. Today, curious as to how far across the boards I could find my book, I did a little bit of digging. It is a wake-up call to see how many markets a book crosses to get it in front of the viewing public.

Some might view it as checking out the competition; but that is an incorrect assumption. Perhaps the venues compete with each other, but for the author having your work available across a wide range of venues increases your chances of being picked up by a new reader. That is good marketing at its simplest form whether you are a self-published author or with a traditional company. Make sure your readers or even just the curious can find you with minimal effort–every click is a potential sale. So where can you find a copy of Stealing Time? Check this out!

Stealing Time on Amazon only $0.99 cents!

Stealing Time on Smashwords only $0.99 cents!

Stealing Time on Barnes and Noble only $0.99 cents!

Stealing Time on Manic Readers only $0.99 cents!

Stealing Time on Musa Publishing only 0.99 cents!

I only covered five venues, but you’re getting the idea, right? Make sure that your readers can easily find you across multiple websites. Market wherever and whenever you can.

Thanks for reading, now go and check to see where your readers can find you, and add a site if needed. Remember to come on back for Write to Pub Wednesdays!

Cheers!

C.K. Garner

January 9, 2012

Publishing on your blog…Don’t unless you already have a copyright in place!

A friend of mine, Nishi Serrano, a featured Horror author in the Hellfire Book of Beltane Anthology (yes, that is a shameless plug for her frightening tale “Old Looshi”  in that Anthology) on occasion puts up an excerpt of her work in progress or a segment of already published material in her Blog.  When I asked her if I should do this, too, her answer was a resounding, “NO!”

She explained that the segment she crafted utilized a character for whom she already had copyright protections in place  or she wouldn’t have done it.

Putting up segments of your own already copyrighted work, is fine, as long as the publishing house you are with, you and your agent all agree on what limitations, if any should apply.

Use caution with your work, and make sure that if you put it on a public site that you own the copyright for your characters.  But be aware ,too, that some publishing houses won’t touch work that already has a copyright, including those published on a Blog or Facebook, Twitter, etc., by their own Authors.  The legalities and risks are changing somewhat with e-publishing business coming rapidly to the fore, but again, use caution and do a bit of research to protect your writing and your interest of same, to do otherwise could be a scary experience fit for a horror novel!

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July 13, 2011

On Writer’s Blog

I'll be around...

Dear Blog,

I’m afraid I owe you an apology.  I have been neglecting you lately, I know.  Like a houseplant or a pet you desire interaction, and must have your nutrients and my time to be happy and thrive, and I have been spending my time with a different love.

This may be hard for you to hear, but I feel I must say it, just get these guilty feelings out so I can clear the air!  So, yes, I have been neglecting you in order to spend quality time with my manuscript.  She’s so creative and beautiful, and I find that the more time I spend with her the better she gets, and the more rounded a writer I become.

So, I just want to say that our relationship has to be whittled down to, I hope, a mutual friendship.  I just need a little space to work on my relationship with my manuscript and see where that will take me…Us.

Just remember, you can rely on me still, as a friend, a shoulder to cry on, whatever you need.  I promise to visit periodically, but I don’t feel it is fair to you to stay in a close relationship…for now.

It’s not you, it’s me.

I’ll be seeing you around.

C.K. Garner

June 19, 2011

Get into Character!

What a Character!

Do you start your story with all of your characters already written out?  Do you know how they will act, what they might say?

I am a person who sucks at dialogue; but now, because I’m dabbling in character creation, I feel like I’m learning, or they are teaching me… it is as if the characters, once created are speaking for themselves, each with a distinct voice to suit his actions.

The fun part of writing is pushing the situations just little bit, or a whole shove from the norm, at the same time as  trying to keep it real.  The characters can help you along, or you can create a character grid, and make sure to follow closely.  What might a character do?  How far should you push them?

For Example, if I think a character is vain, I really get silly with that vanity, i.e., I try to take it way beyond what a normal person might do.   I’ll have them missing conversation, irritating people, and losing weight because they are so engaged in their reflection in the dinner plates they forget to eat!  If a person is clumsy, I have them tripping all over the place.

Are they an evildoer?  They are going to take a shot at your baby sister’s baby bunnies, drag the key down the side of someone’s car, blow up pigeons for fun and chuckles, and generally wreak havoc.

Same goes for nice.  Made of sugar, but sometimes spice is the answer there.  As for the middling ones, it helps to shove them over either edge to see how they will handle the drop.  Sometimes a character will grow if you push them, this is especially true if you shove each into the other!  The characters will tell you what they will and won’t do along the way once you start getting them down on the page.

I like to take them to extremes because it makes the story better, even if I tone them down later.  It’s just fun to have a character go beyond the bounds of what is the accepted “norm”.  The lengths to which you can manipulate your characters into a twisted tale are endless, and even impossibilities are, well, possible if you decide they are real enough to write them down!

For the rest of the month I’ll be catching up on all of the possible goofs I have missed in adding the new characters.  I want a seamless blending where I have added them in, which means line by line editing.  I take the time when doing this to catch dropped punctuation, spelling errors, grammatical no-no’s, etc..

It is also a good time to check and see that your characters are showing, speaking, and acting it out rather than you telling the story.

Believe me, no matter how many times I go over it, I catch a couple more errors, and kill them off, hiding the evidence, so that by the time I get to the end, I will be ready for the next batch of revisions from Friends, Beta Readers, Agents and Editors.

I recommend you  try adding a couple of characters and see what happens with your story.  I’ll bet it grows in ways you didn’t expect.  Have fun playing in your world, the company is great!

C.K. Garner

May 26, 2011

Back to writing

Well, no one is going to see this but the bots as they have taken over my referral box and comment box!  Alas, Askimet does not catch them and they have overridden the Kingdom at wordpress. So I’m going to leave off Blogging for awhile until they fix the referral spam problem.  I’m not writing the Blog here for the bots, I’m writing it for the exercise it gives the mind, and for contact with other Writers and Authors, to see what they are doing, and to share what I have found in researching the road from Writer to Author.  I’m writing less, and I find myself spending more time trying to find a way around the bots and worrying about my stats than writing, and since that is what the whole blog is for, but it has been corrupted, *sigh* I just don’t see any other option.

On a happier note, I’m going back to writing offline, of course, where I always compose.  I’m about half way through the manuscript, and the decision to put my energies to that instead of fighting the bots makes me feel better already.  Makes me wonder if the Blogging is really worth it?  Perhaps the best author sites are true feedback sites, where they critique each others work.  I think that after working on my manuscript for about a week, I’ll do some research in that arena.  I’ll see you later folks!  I hope the writing links provided in my blogs will help you on your way!

Cheers!

C.K. Garner

May 20, 2011

>Formatting Your Manuscript: Section One, Traditional Format

Manuscript

Don't wait! Format your manuscript now!

>When I began writing, it was on paper.  Ten sheets of crazy written notes in chicken scratch handwriting, filled to capacity on both sides. I even had teeny notes in the margins and running around the edges!  Beautiful to have the ideas down, ugly to look at.  I transferred it to the computer, started fleshing out those ideas, making them bigger, scrapping some, just writing.  However, I was all over the place with fun word fonts tiny print sizes, not to mention right justified margins.  There was nothing to distinguish between one chapter and the next, and it had random headers and footers for chapters and notes.  With an eye on future publication, I knew I needed to get my writing into manuscript format, both for my own organization, and eventual manuscript submissions.

So, I dove into the search to find the best manuscript formatting advice.  And there is a crazy amount of information out there!  For this first segment I’m going to concentrate on traditional publishing formats.   After reading two books with content on the subject, and twenty websites, I came up with a good  answer, and a couple of links. Depending on the publishing house, there are many ways to format a manuscript, and each one has its preference.  There are, however, some prominent commonalities.  The following list should get your writing in good order, and when you get to the finish line, your manuscript will be properly formatted aside from front page.

Get organized, get formatted, get going!

The following format applies to Traditional Manuscripts only:

  • A one inch margin all around is the industry standard.
  • Margin should be left justified, resulting in a ragged margin on the right edge.
  • Most prefer no header or footer
  • Type size should allow for editing and ease of reading. Size 12 or 10 are best, but trend leans toward size 12.
  • Most Editors and Agents prefer to read fonts in New Courier, but Times New Roman is  acceptable.  This can vary widely between Agents, Editors, and Publishing Houses.  Check before you send your manuscript!
  • Double space your lines.
  • Use a .5 inch indentation for a new paragraph.
  •  To begin a new chapter, insert a page break, but check with the Publishing House guidelines as this varies highly.
  • Another option to indicate when one paragraph starts and another stops is to use a pound sign # centered at the start of a new chapter, but once again this varies highly by Publishing House.  Check their specific guidelines!
  • Words that you want to emphasized should be underlined.  Do not use italics.
  • Number your pages at the top of each page!  Make sure they are sequential, starting from 1, 2, 3, etc. each page getting a number to the end page which will have the highest number. There are specifics as to where each Publishing House will want the numbering, but for writing purposes top right should do.
  • There is a lot of conflicting information as to whether or not to print your name at the top of each page.  But from researching this, it is better to skip it until you have selected an agent or publishing house, then apply those guidelines. 
  • Want more information about formatting you manuscript or a front cover letter? My usual go to guy, Author Nathan Bransford and this nice clear information from Moira Allen, editor of Writing World.com Moira Allen, Manuscript Format
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