Monthly Archives: April 2017

FOUR QUICK TIME-SAVING TIPS YOU MAY NEVER HAVE CONSIDERED BEFORE
  1. Have only as many credit cards you need—one personal, one business. Think of all the time you’ll save when not dealing with more. The only exception would be for a store card or two where you visit at least once a month and get special offers and discounts for using that card.
  1. When preparing meals, do it near the sink to throw peelings into the disposal and put a trash can right next to you for other trash. If you can’t easily move your can, use a bowl to throw stuff in to be emptied later.
  1. Tickler file at home. If you don’t have much going on every month, just make a file folder for each month. Have a calendar in there that shows birthdays and other days you want to send out cards. Put the cards in that folder when you buy them. Stash tickets, invitations, letters you need to answer and anything else that you want to do in a particular month. I do that and keep a Google calendar on my computer for a quick glance to see what’s coming up, like doctor appointments. Using both the file and the calendar, I am usually on top of everything.
  1. Have a box (about shoe-box size) next to where you store your purses. When you want to change bags, put everything into the box and sort through it to arrange the new purse.
DIFFERENCES BETWEEN AMATEURS AND PROFESSIONALS

Jeff Goins wrote a spot-on article about the differences between amateurs and professionals in any profession.

The main points  that struck me were:

  • Pros take action almost every day, if only for a short period of time, even half an hour, or perhaps fifteen minutes. Every day.
  • Pros keep working to get better, even after they’re famous.
  • Pros accept failure as a given and learn from it, then carry on.
  • Pros build a body of work. This improves their work.

To get the full article, go here:

https://medium.com/@jeffgoins/the-7-differences-between-professional-and-amateurs-ab6850c25c61

What it did for me:

I realized that I needed to work harder at being a professional marketer for my work. I need to spend time every single day on that goal, just as I spend most every single day on my writing.

If you really think about it, most of us need two main areas where we shine, usually one helping the other. For example, business manager and employee relations. Or better, wife and mother; husband and father. And yeah, writing and marketing that writing

Do you have two areas you think are complementary? If so, are you spending about equal time on both? Or do you disagree with any of this?

CAN LOOKING AT STATISTICS MAKE US BETTER WRITERS?

Interesting interview with an author about using statistics to improve our writing. Go here and see what you think.

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/one-writer-used-statistics-reveal-secrets-what-makes-great-writing-180962515/

Some of my observations:

  • Best-selling female writers use more “ly” words than the men do.
  • Beginning a story with the weather is not a deal-breaker for most readers. (But it almost always is for this reader.)
  • Favorite words can tell you a lot about an author.
  • This looks like a book that would be great fun to read.

Bottom line? Some writers “break the rules” and become famous. I like to play it safe, though, so I don’t usually start my stories with long sentences, the weather, or a single character musing, especially if she just woke up in bed. I also avoid “ly” words as much as possible, but I do use them sometimes because, you know, variety is the spice of life, and sometimes there is not a good verb that can stand alone that doesn’t distract from the flow. Every time I read that someone is trotting, I think of a horse. Is that what writers want? Think about the reader! Most readers never notice “ly” words, I’m sure. But weird words that are seldom used will take them right out of a story.

READING TO LEARN HOW TO WRITE BETTER

A great trick for helping your own writing is to read other fiction similar to what you write and see what you skim through because it doesn’t interest you or bores you.

Does anything in particular annoy you about the book? Examples:

  • Present tense
  • Starting with one character musing or waking up. No conflict, no action
  • Too much description is a good example. Or maybe even, not enough, which results in no sense of place.
  • Characters with annoying habits that distract you from the plot. One recent read had several characters puckering their lips, apparently in confusion or disgust—I was pretty disgusted myself after about the fourth use of this word. Another one I saw by a best-selling author was; “Her eyes crunched.” What? Like cereal?
  • Anything that distracts you from the plot
  • Long descriptions of travel routes. Who cares how the character got from A to B, unless something exciting happens along the way? I don’t mind a mention of a few streets so that people familiar with a real setting get a better visual, but no need for every single turn, IMO. Or telling the reader every time a character climbed into the car, and then exited again. Anyone find it amusing, as I do, at how hard we try to use different words for ordinary actions, like sitting and getting in and out of a car (climbing in and exiting out of)?
  • Too much jumping around—with too many character POVs, settings, and/or timeframes. All this can be handled well by a good writer, but it can be hard to read by a not-so-talented one.
  • Weird attributions. The latest one I saw by a best-selling author was; “Her eyes crunched.” What? Like cereal?

Bottom line, try to figure out why this particular book was easy to put down.

On the other hand, notice what you liked about a work:

  • The characters? Why? What actions and emotional responses made them come alive for you?
  • The setting? Why—because it was simply interesting to you personally or because it was done so well, or?
  • The plot—because it had great twists or was unusual, or what? What plot points worked well for you? How can you make them your own in your writing?
  • The writing itself—was it voice, or word choices, or theme, or pacing, or something hard to define? See if you can nail it down

As soon as you figure out that the book you are reading right now might be a favorite, start taking notes. For each chapter, do a short synopsis.

  • Pay particular attention to how it starts and ends
  • What was the main conflict in the chapter, or questions raised?
  • How did the writer describe things that made you actually see them in your mind’s eye?
  • What did you like about the characters, including the villain(s). What made you love to hate them?

Is there anything in particular that almost always makes you love or dislike a book? If so, what is it? And what do you try really hard to do well with your stories?

For a much longer blog post about reading to help your writing, I recommend this:

How to learn to write while you’re reading