Thank you, Lasesana, for offering this great introduction to Spanish in 15 easy lessons.
http://lasesana.wordpress.com/learn-spanish/
Writers, pay attention. This is the place to grab a little Spanish to spice up your dialogue in your manuscript. Poets, use the language of passion to punch up that poetry.
Turning Your Manuscript into an Audiobook.
My daughter is a busy lady. She was telling me recently about several books she wants to read. She lamented that she doesn’t have time.
“Now if the author put the book out as an audiobook, then I’d buy it and listen in the car.”
Bingo!
I forget that audiobooks are another avenue for reaching the public. Like paperbacks or e-books, it’s another version to sell to broaden your audience. Sell more by releasing your book in an audiobook format.
Click the link at the top of this post for more information.
This post is a follow-up to yesterday’s posting. After I penned “When an Author Offends,” I started thinking that maybe I was mistaken about why a reader leaves.
I decided to contact one of my own long-time readers who recently departed. I wrote:
Hi, dear girl. I can’t help but notice your absence. That leads me to ask you to help me out by explaining what happened? Where did I change as a writer — or change my subject matter — that lost you as a reader? I ask, not because I am hurt, but in order to learn from the experience. You followed a long time. At some point, I no longer was useful to you. I’d like to understand that. It will be helpful to me as an author. Thank you for all the input you gave me. I really appreciated it. (And I miss you.)
This blog is about wanting to be a writer, in every sense of the word. A writer is a creator, a marketer, a brand-builder, a businessman, a human being.
So I need to be transparent about my weaknesses and faults. Doing so may save you, my reader, a misstep of your own.
I hope my blog friend replies. She will do me a great service if she is frank and honest. It will be a valuable learning experience.
This morning I have had my first negative thoughts about the anthology project of the local writers group.
My WordPress galpal Crubin calls her negative self-talk Mr. Nasty Pants. Apparently he is visiting me this morning. He is suggesting that my writing micro-fiction for the anthology is a bad thing because I am trying to be a novelist. I am sending a wrong message to readers by introducing them to me through micro-fiction.
I say, “Nonsense.” He is persisting in his argument.
My view is I am new at this writing game. I have made a conscious choice to write a novel: that is the genre in which I believe I want to work. However, blogging has taught me that I like writing short pieces just as much. Then I discovered micro-fiction. It’s the haiku of story-telling. It’s fun and challenging to me. It improves my self- editing skills. Yes, the flavor is different than the novel. But is it really a bad thing to write in more than one genre?
When I get an ice cream cone, I mix up the flavors. Each scoop is different. I eat one flavor at a time, with an occasional drip-catching lick to the others. I like variety. I like sampling. It’s my bad.
Remember. I have stated, “I am not a Hemingway.” What I mean is I have no illusion of producing classic literature that will be studied through the ages. I want to entertain, amuse, calm, nurture, persuade, tickle my reader. My works are meant to be read, mulled over for a brief duration, then shared or shelved.
If I aspired to create literature, then I would understand perfecting my craft in a single genre. As it is, I just want to be read, then read again.
What do you think? Give me your point-of-view.
Give Brad Geagley his props: he has published multiple books and has professional Hollywood credits. So when someone who gets paid for doing what I dream about speaks, I listen.
Brad’s blog has a collection of several articles on writing how-to’s. I will be featuring a few over the coming weeks. The link today ties to his discussion on writing dialog. Below I’ve pasted a snippet of his opinion about the purpose dialog serves.
Dialog has three purposes in all the media I’ve mentioned –
- To reveal (or suggest) the nature of each character
- Provide the audience with essential information
- To advance the plot
And in a novel, there is a fourth task:
4. Get into a character’s head and actually learn what he is thinking.
Read more here:
http://bradgeagley.wordpress.com/2012/04/19/how-to-write-dialogue-the-art-of-being-invisible/
Kira, of her new leaf.com, offers advice to Primp Your Blog. These tips can help you improve the look and interactivity of your blog site. Visit her to learn more. Click on the link below.
Riatarded of The Uninspired Chronicles has touched a nerve. She is blogging about how an author jumpstarts writing when the author hits a wall. Many are wall-slammed it seems, seeking a solution to writer’s block. I’ve offered a couple of tips I use to Riatarded. My guess is she will put out an e-book with her collection of tips once the comment tennis game is over. It may prove to be a useful tool.
But it’s the comment tennis aspect of blogging that I want to chat about. Comment tennis (please forgive me for oversimplifying here) is the back and forth written exchanges on blogs. It is an art I am practicing. Why practice? Because I am trying to teach myself to soften my naturally very direct style.
I like getting straight to the point of a matter. I prefer to cut the chit-chat. However, I am aware that directness can equate to rudeness or sound like arrogance. So, I am trying to create a better way for Fay to communicate: I am practicing chit-chat via comments.
Second, I am an introvert forcing myself to act extroverted. Staying inside my introverted comfort zone reinforces bad habits I’ve made that obstruct free communication. To change myself in relation to others, I have to show up in another’s space. I have to get out there.
Third, good communication is an art. Reading and participating in comment tennis can teach me what works and what doesn’t. Practicing the positive forms reinforces those skills and ingrains them in my being.
It is said it takes thirty days of doing to make a new habit. When I have a lifetime of doing things a certain way, I think it’s going to take more than thirty days of practice to change it.
My Aussie e-friend at e-Learning Provocateur has posted a collection of blog sites for advancing one’s knowledge. As writers, we are a curious lot who love to learn new things, so we can incorporate those things into stories.
For you “already professional” authors, one of the blogs cited deals with social business on a global scale. If you are planning to take your book products outside of North America, you may glean some tips to speed your process along.
Another blog mentioned focuses on futurism and related trends. Syfy writers take note. The remaining topics covered in Provocateur’s list are vast — a true treasure trove. Check it out. Feed your head.
Love this guy’s stuff. I was blog hopping and found the site of still photographer Phil Kneen. He tells about using two sick days productively: he taught himself to use filmmaking software and produced the embeded video below.
People/1:01 from Phil Kneen on Vimeo.
Here’s his words about the process:
(Source: http://philkneen.wordpress.com/2012/03/ )
I’ve never really had the patience for filmmaking, it’s something I’ve always been interested in, I’ve dipped my toe into it over the years, but stills photography always wins my attention. I’ve constantly been unable to focus my creative interest into two things at once, I suppose it’s a good and a bad thing?
Over the past two or three weeks I’ve been a bit ‘static’ due to back problems, this has had the hidden bonus of allowing me the time to sit and play with Apple’s fantastic bit of software, Final Cut X. With the help of Youtube tutorials, Google and a bit of intuition I’ve managed to teach myself the basics of this professional video editing package in less than two days. The fundamentals of video are actually easier, for me personally, to get to grips with as there are only 3 colours, red, green and blue, to deal with, as opposed to 6 in digital stills. All the other nuts and bolts, such as contrast, saturation, hue , etc, are essentially the same.
The video below is just a short 2 minute thing that I put together using existing footage and some bits I’ve made over the last week or so. Final cut is amazingly easy to use – I edited this film together in just a couple of hours. I haven’t seen many friends over the last two weeks, but those I have seen are probably in this short…
Click on the link. Please take a moment to read the tactic used by the author to capture this real life Bambi Ballet. For authors who wish to sell magazine articles, acquiring photography skills can enhance your earnings. A friend of mine sells articles to several sailing magazines. She has learned to be a good photographer. Now she sells photographs with her articles. Consequently, she has doubled her earnings.
The “Flying Reindeer” author talks about animal photography and a trick he learned on the fly. It’s a simple tool to add to your writer’s tool box.
Fay Moore: I Want To Be a Writer 