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Are you a new author, writing your first book? Perhaps you have attended a critique group a couple of times and picked up some tips for writing good fiction. I receive manuscripts from hopeful authors who have had such guidance, but who don’t have a clear understanding of how to apply the things they’ve learned from other writers.

They might use dialog to move their story, but it is forced and awkward. They may describe a character, but it is inappropriate to the flow of the story. It might interrupt the story, for example rather than enhance the reader’s experience.

If you are writing fiction, attend critique groups, of course. Take the book manuscript you are working on and listen to what the others suggest. Notice how your story affects them—do they laugh/cry in the right places? Did they enjoy the segment you read? Did they find it entertaining or was it painful for them to hear? Sure, there might be one among the group who has a rather warped outlook on what comprises good writing. Spend some time with these folks and you’ll learn who to listen to most. And it isn’t necessarily the one who says, “I love it!” every time you read. It is those who give you the most useful critique. Those who help you to make your story better.

You’ll learn by critiquing others, as well and by listening to how others critique your fellow writers.

But also, you should be reading the type of book you are writing. Lots of them! Whether it is a light mystery, young adult adventure story, children’s book for ages 8-12, your spiritual memoir or a how-to book, find others for exactly the same audience and study them.

You can no longer comment at this blog site. I turned off my comments option because there was just too much spam coming through. I mean a LOT—30 to 100 per day or between 400 and 700 a week. It just became way too overwhelming. If you wish to comment or reach me, please use this email address: PLFry620@yahoo.com.

http://www.patriciafry.com
http://www.matilijapress.com

How do you go about writing a story? Do you have a technique for writing a short story or a book that works for you?

Do you have a plot and characters in mind when you start to write? Or does the plot develop as you write and do the characters emerge over time?

Do you know timelines and ages, etc. before you start writing or do you figure these things out as you proceed?

Do you outline the book and then write it? Or do you just start writing and watch the story take shape?

Do you think about your plot and characters a lot when you are away from the computer? Does this help or hinder your progress with your story?

When you recognize that something in your story isn’t ringing true, do you fix it then or wait until you’ve finished fleshing out a scene.

Do you stop to research small questions while writing or do you make notes to conduct this research later.

How important is the flow of the story? In other words, is it important that you keep writing and worry about questions and problems later?

How do you keep characters and the progress of the storyline organized? Do you have pages of notes, note cards, a wall chart?

A whole lot of fiction writers would like to know. Would love to have you share.

Yesterday, I shared five ways to make more money writing. Here are five more

1: Write speeches. Did you know that people will pay for speeches of all types? Write a eulogy, a motivational speech for a CEO or a roast for a 50th birthday party. You can charge anywhere from $25 to $100 for a five-seven-minute speech. Start out by contacting people you know or read about in local newspapers or even on the Internet who are planning celebrations and other such events. Advertise at your website that you write speeches and give some examples.

2: Produce fundraising material for businesses and organizations. Fundraising takes a special knack which is why business leaders and organization directors usually hire someone to write their fundraising materials. If you can write convincing, straightforward copy designed to touch people’s hearts and their pocketbooks, you can probably get work in this field.

3: Do technical writing. The term “technical writer” used to intimidate me. I know very little about computer technology, but I can write simple instructions. And this is all that is necessary in some forms of technical writing. If you can explain in writing how to use a toaster, maybe there’s a place for you as a technical writer. To learn more about this field and to find jobs in this market, check out websites such as this one: http://www.helpscribe.com/2008/01/how-to-become-technical-writer.html Read books such as Handbook of Technical Writing by Gerald J. Alred (and others).

4: Expand your writing services. Article writing or client work might be your forte. But don’t limit yourself. There are a wide variety of companies and organizations out there looking for good writers. Have you ever visited a website that was disorganized and littered with misspelled words? Contact the Web master and offer to rewrite the text. Do you sometimes find mistakes on brochures you receive in the mail? Go to the heads of these companies/organizations, point out the mistakes and offer your services.

Perhaps a local business, your county seat or a historical church is nearing a hallmark anniversary. Propose a commemorative piece to celebrate the event. I once wrote a booklet featuring the history of our largest local water district and earned $3,000 for my efforts.

5: Ask for writing work. When you experience a slow time (and we all have them), contact some of your favorite editors and ask for an assignment. Maybe one of their writers can’t make deadline and they need a fast turnaround on an article. Perhaps they have an idea, but haven’t yet settled on a writer to initiate it. It often pays to make yourself available.

And it pays to do good work. This should go without saying, but I experienced the full impact of this statement a few years ago. I was a regular contributor for an association magazine. When this organization needed someone to rewrite their manuals, my editor
recommended me. This was a major project. In fact, I was paid more for this one job than I earned all year writing articles for their magazine.

In order to find and land unique writing jobs such as these, you must be proactive. Here’s what I suggest:
Subscribe to online writing-oriented newsletters and join online writing organizations that offer job listings for writers.

http://www.matilijapress.com
http://www.patriciafry.com

Are you a working writer? Can you find enough work to support your writing habit? Would you like to make even more money? Of course you would. And you can! All you need is an awareness of the vast opportunities out there for writers and the willingness to stretch and grow.

Let’s say that you write articles for magazines. You send out forty queries and write three to eight articles each month. Additionally, you recycle your articles as reprints. You get paid to write a church bulletin and an occasional book review. What more could you do? Plenty. Here are some ideas:

1: Write political campaign material. Elections can be lucrative for writers. Whether the campaign is citywide or at the national level, candidates rely on accomplished writers to sway voters. I’ve earned some good money writing campaign material for school board candidates and local union election contenders. To get involved, simply choose your candidate or cause and apply for a writing job. Be prepared with a resume and a sample press release or campaign blurb. Typical pay is in the $20 and $80/hour range.

How to get started: Contact local candidates for school board, city council and other such offices and positions.

2: Produce radio copy. Before it’s spoken, it has to be written—at least that’s true of radio ads. If you can write concise, interesting copy for products, this might be an enjoyable and lucrative sideline for you. The pay for radio commercials is around $40 – $75/hour.

How to get started: Apply at local radio stations. Eventually, branch out to other geographic areas.

3: Start a newsletter business. I know someone who writes newsletters for half dozen businesses and organizations. Potential earnings per newsletter are in the $2000 to $6000 range per year.

How to get started: Approach organization heads and business managers with ideas for developing or improving their newsletters.

4: Become a teacher. Your writing/publishing experience could be a valuable commodity. Give seminars for fledgling writers. Teach classes through a local art center, a community college or online. Present memoir classes at a senior center. You can earn anywhere from $100 to $1,000 per course or seminar.

How to get started: Set up your own workshops or apply for a position through the local adult education program.

5: You be the judge. If you have impressive writing credentials, why not apply as a judge for some of the many writing contests operating throughout the U.S. each year? I’ve judged poetry contests and a nonfiction story-writing contest. The pay isn’t usually that great, but it’s fun, it’s a definite learning experience and it’s another credit for your resumé.

How to get started: Apply for a judging job by contacting the directors of contests that appeal to you. Find contests listed in Writer’s Market and by doing an Internet search. Start local or within a genre where you are known.

Tomorrow I’ll list another five ways to earn more money writing.

http://www.matilijapress.com
http://www.patriciafry.com

I thought it would be fun to share some quotes about writers with you today.

“Asking a writer what he thinks about critics is like asking a lamp post how it feels about dogs.”
Ann Landers

“The writer is either a practicing recluse or a delinquent, guilt-ridden one; or both. Usually both.”
Susan Sontag

“When a writer talks about his work, he’s talking about a love affair.”
Alfred Kazin

“A writer is, after all, only half his book. The other half is the reader and from the reader the writer learns.”
P. L. Travers

“Even the best writer has to erase”
Spanish Proverb

And here are some about cats and writers:

“Authors like cats because they are such quiet, lovable, wise creatures, and cats like authors for the same reasons”
Robertson Davies

“Cats are dangerous companions for writers because cat watching is a near-perfect method of writing avoidance”
Dan Greenburg

“A catless writer is almost inconceivable. It’s a perverse taste, really, since it would be easier to write with a herd of buffalo in the room than even one cat; they make nests in the notes and bite the end of the pen and walk on the typewriter keys.”
Barbara Holland

Nothing makes you think about your writing career path like being interviewed. Where have you been, what have you accomplished as a writer and where are you going? If this is something you haven’t thought about for a year or more, you really ought to.

Consider why you write. What measure of success have you had since you started writing for publication? What steps did you take to get where you are? Are you enjoying the process? What aspects do you enjoy most? Can you rearrange your work schedule to spend more time doing that? What tasks or obligations bring you the most results (sales, attention)? What is stopping you from moving forward—making more sales, for example? What can you do to remove these obstacles?

Perhaps you want to sell more copies of your book. The obstacle to that seems to be that you’re not spending enough time promoting it. Maybe you’ve come to some dead ends with it—your promotional tactics are proving stagnant. You’d rather be writing than marketing. You’re tired of promoting your book. But if you decide that you really want to sell more copies—reach more people—an evaluation might reveal that some changes are in order.

Maybe you want to create a living writing articles. Let’s say you’ve been at it for a couple of years and you’re still not earning enough to quit your part-time job. Once you examine your way of working your freelance business—your approach—you might discover that you are not coming up with as many ideas as you were a year ago and are not submitting as many queries. Perhaps you’ve become lazy about finding new article ideas.

What more could you do? Research what’s news—what’s hot—in your area of interest. Or branch out into other topics. Also research publications. Magazines and ezines open, close and change their focus regularly.

I know some writers who are stuck on one topic written one way and are determined to get published in only certain major magazines. When they reevaluate their writing work, if they are astute, they will surely realize that they have two basic choices. Branch out and start writing about things other than your pet project or find ways to spoon-feed your message to your audience through, perhaps, a different approach and through smaller, easier-to- approach publications. There’s always a third choice, of course—give up.

You know the “if-it-ain’t broke…” concept. But what about when it isn’t working? Are you willing to take an honest look at your approach to your writing work and the results of your efforts as they are? Can you make necessary changes? For some of you, this means giving up the pen. You never wanted to be a writer. You don’t like writing. You definitely don’t like the constant need to promote. All you wanted was to be noticed or to make a statement or make a difference.

Sorry, but with all of the competition for books and articles today, it takes more than most people want to put in to realize even a minimally successful outcome.

Why don’t you respond to the questions posed at the beginning of this post and see if you can determine if you need to make some u-turns along your pathway toward writing or publishing success?

Drop in on tomorrow’s blog post. Sandra Beckwith will be guest blogger. She’s talking about the most important book promotion tools you need in your author’s toolkit.

For editing services and publishing consultations contact Patricia Fry at http://www.patriciafry.com

Check out Patricia’s online courses: http://www.matilijapress.com/courses.htm

Thanks, Patricia, for the gracious invitation to guest blog. Readers, I am Nancy Barnes, the lead editor of Stories To Tell Books. I am here today as a specialist in memoirs and family histories. We also handle fiction and nonfiction, but in memoir and family history a style has arisen called “creative nonfiction” for books grounded in fact and presented using the tools of literature.

These are special books, not only because of the subject matter, but because of the unique way they are designed – usually with photos, and in some family histories, a genealogist may want to include endnotes, charts, appendixes and an index. An illustrated book is a whole different project than text-only. As a book editor and designer, I enjoy producing illustrated books because they are so interesting to look at as well as to read.

Lots of people have a dream book they know will fascinate their family and friends. Memoirists and family historians aren’t necessarily writing for profit. Many of the book projects we edit, design and publish are for private printing, for limited distribution, or for small-scale self publishing. Others need our help to “commercialize” a book so that it will sell to the general public. Our specialty is to help authors – many of them first-time authors – through the whole process step-by-step, from the draft manuscript through publishing. Imagine how much easier it is to write and publish a book when you can ask your editor what to do every time you get stuck.

What is the best way to write a memoir or family history? Many beginners think in terms of chronology. But reporting events this way can be tedious, and literature has developed many devices, such as flashbacks and a story within a story, to manipulate time itself. The topics and themes, once identified, will often suggest the best order.

As always with editing, the biggest decision is what to include and what to cut. In this genre, writers really struggle with cuts. Since it really happened, it must be included, right? Not true! Ask “who is my reader, and what would they care about?” You can’t fit every story into one book, so pick the guaranteed winners, the stories sure to entertain or evoke deep feelings, as well as to inform. A final writing tip: for memoirists, the best tool is “voice”, so use an intimate tone to share thoughts and feelings, not just the facts.

Each month in my newsletter (you can subscribe free on my website http://www.StoriesToTellBooks.com I write a column on role models for writers. By exploring these well written books and the craft of good literature, writers can influence the style of their own work in progress.

When I edit and design a book, my decisions are based on the final goals for the book. How will it be printed? Hardcover or soft? Digital? Does the author want it up on amazon.com? How many copies does the author hope to distribute? These decisions effect my design choices: the book’s size, length, whether to use color, etc. These factors also determine the right publisher or printer for the book. This is where my experience really helps, as authors caught up in writing rarely anticipate what’s ahead.

If you would like to know more about this type of book project, check out our blog at http://www.StoriesToTellBlooks.com/blog where we discuss writing, editing, design, publishing and more. While you’re there, post a comment or ask a question. We’re happy to help!

Do you ever fall into a writing slump? Perhaps you are between writing projects or you are burning out on the one you are working on. Maybe you suffer from writers’ block. You are poised to write, but your brain and imagination won’t cooperate. How do you handle it?

For writers’ block, especially if you have an assignment and/or are on a writing deadline, I would just start writing. Type your thoughts about the fact that you can’t think of anything to write. Then consider the topic you are trying to approach. Type some facts, thoughts, stories related to the topic and see what comes up. Often, this exercise will lead right to a good starting place or even a good middle that you can use to ground your chapter, article or story. Just delete the jibber jabber you wrote in the beginning and move on with your story.

Write something else. If you truly can’t focus on the topic or theme at hand, if it is driving you crazy just thinking about it, if you are drawing a giant blank, write a story about your cat’s latest cute antic, your cousin’s eventful visit last weekend, or describe the lovely dinner you prepared for the family the night before. The point of this exercise is to start the flow of words coming from your imagination to the computer screen (or onto the paper if you prefer). Once the words are flowing nicely, begin to think about the project at hand and you might be surprised to discover what flows out.

Many times over the years, when I’ve felt stuck or stilted in my writing, I will attempt to remove myself from the equation. I quiet myself using a meditative process (self-hypnosis and prayer work, too). Then I place my hands on the keyboard and allow my fingers to seek out the keys they want. I have been surprised many times at how clearly and easily a phrase or entire article will appear as I sit back and watch it happen.

These are tips for overcoming temporary writers’ block. But what about when you are between projects or you are experiencing burn out? Hey, I say walk away. It’s time for something new in your life—new scenery (how about having iced coffee on the patio), a new activity (does your garden need tending?), a new direction (a shopping trip can be a nice distraction), company (this is a good opportunity to spend time with your favorite non-writer friends) or some other diversion tactic.

I like to take a break between projects and spruce up an area of the house that has been neglected after months spent writing a book, for example. Pick up one of your hobbies for a great burst of creative satisfaction. Go out and adopt a kitten or older dog companion. Cook a dish for or make something else to share with a neighbor. Get some serious exercise. Visit a local Farmer’s Market and stock up on good-for-you fruits and veggies.

Writing can become a lifestyle. Many of us have created careers around our love of writing. But everyone, even creatives who are doing what they enjoy most, need a respite from the routine, lest we become stagnant. At least that’s what I tell myself when I am enjoying an afternoon away from the office.

How do you deal with writers’ block, burn out or those slow periods between projects? Leave your comment here.