Tuesday, April 30, 2013

Get to Know You



There's a lot of great software out there.
There are lots of ways to better take advantage of resources you already have available.
Many ways to create good, sustaining, writing rituals.
And to protect your time and writing space.

In almost every single post, I've found myself writing something along the lines of, "This may not be for everyone."

And the reason for that?

Because the best writing hack is You.

What do you want? What kinds of books do you want to write? Which things will most help you achieve those goals? Are you a morning writer, or an evening writer? Do you feel stifled by a daily wordcount, or does it energize you? Do you prefer a longhand notes notebook, or does storyboarding software make your fingers tingle with joy?

The best way to make the most out of your writing time is to pay attention...to yourself. Because what makes your writing time tick isn't what makes mine tick. What works for one person won't necessarily work for everyone.

The key is to know yourself as a writer. This might come through journaling about your writing process, or through trying different things and throwing them out, or simply by experiencing yourself as you write.

But most importantly, it involves writing.

Know yourself. When you do, whatever system you have will be the most "hacked" and the best one there is...

...for you.

Thanks for coming along on my first A-Z! It's been super fun, and I've loved getting to surf around to so many different blogs. I hope to write an A-Z recap next week, with some important new lessons that the A-Z experience taught me about writing, of course!

In the meantime, happy writing.

This month I'm participating in the A-Z blog challenge. My theme is "writer hacks," or 26 shortcuts you can do as a writer to get the most out of writing and the journey toward and through publication. Find out more about it at a-to-zchallenge.com, and hop around to read the other cool blogs that are part of the challenge!

Monday, April 29, 2013

Wrangle Story Research With Zotero

Merp? But it's the penultimate day, you say. Why am I posting "Z"? Well, as I was looking at my topics, I realized that the best and most important writing hack is "Y," and that "Y" would be a great one to end this little journey. So I'm going to post "Z" today, and "Y" to end everything tomorrow.

As a broke grad student (wait, that's redundant), one is always on the lookout for inexpensive solutions to problems. And one problem I have as a grad student is citation management. A friend tipped me toward an open-source citation manager called Zotero.

Right. So Zotero does all those cool things like throw in an in-line citation (Schley 2013) and create a bibliography. Neither of which are things a fiction writer often has to do, though if you need something more robust, it can handle that.

But what really makes Zotero nice for my fiction writing is its ability to wrangle multiple types of sources at once. For instance, I can have a PDF of an article attached to its citation so that the citation automatically launches the PDF when I need it. Or, the reference might be for a URL for a website with great info. Or perhaps I check a book out of the library, and make notes about the important stuff that's relevant to my novel right into the citation, and then, if I need the book again, all the info about which book it was is right at my fingertips so that I can check it back out.

Then, I can group all my citations for any given book into a folder, so that all the resources I've used for one book appear in one place. 

Best of all? I can tag all those sources with their topics or any other tag that is relevant to me. The sources still stay in the main bin, but they can be pulled up by tag. For instance, I try to keep heavy research to two books, so that at any given time, I'm doing two spins on the same set of research. So for Book A I might need resources on topic Q, but I'll need topic Q resources for Book B, also. When I begin outlining Book B, instead of just browsing everything I set aside for Book A, I can just click on the tag for topic Q, and add those citations to a new folder.

We're all trying to craft a story that our readers can get lost in with full suspension of disbelief. But to do that well means potentially keeping track of a lot of little niggling details. Zotero lets me outsource some of that work, so that I can focus on the important part: the writing.

What do you use, if anything, to keep track of where your noveling research has taken you? Bookmarking sites? Goodreads or Library Thing? Your Amazon Wish List?

Zotero

This month I'm participating in the A-Z blog challenge. My theme is "writer hacks," or 26 shortcuts you can do as a writer to get the most out of writing and the journey toward and through publication. Find out more about it at a-to-zchallenge.com, and hop around to read the other cool blogs that are part of the challenge!

Saturday, April 27, 2013

Use X-Ray to Improve Your Structure

So, I'm not a giant fan of the 'Zon, for a lot of reasons (and actually, none of which have to do with my being employed by their main competitor, as it's a part time job and my world wouldn't crash if suddenly my employer disappeared). But I definitely have to give them props for the things they do well, for instance, their fabulous book-finding algorithms.

One thing the 'Zon does really well is the X-Ray feature on Kindle. And it works on the Kindle apps, too, so you can discover it even if you don't have a Kindle. X-ray was designed to allow people to surf easily through a book for all the mentions of a particular character, to define terms, and basically to allow people to more easily navigate a book.

But I've found it is helping me think about novel structure in a way I haven't before.

For instance, here is a screenshot from my iPad of an X-ray from a Kindle book I enjoyed recently, SOMETHING LIKE NORMAL, by Trish Doller.




Looking at this page, I can see a few things. How often is the MC's old love interest mentioned? (Paige Manning) How about one of his close friends? (Ken Chestnut) How much time does the author spend explaining and talking about the Marines? (not a lot)

I can also see how dense these mentions are. The first part of the book is about Travis coming home to North Carolina; the second half is more about him reconnecting with his Marine buddies and coming to grips with what happened to all of them in Afghanistan. As I think about that in parallel with looking at how often and where these characters get mentioned, I can see that in the beginning, there's a lot of to-do about the ex-girlfriend, and while she's still present as the book goes on, her mentions get shorter and more infrequent. By contrast, the love interest, Harper, has exactly the opposite trajectory.

X-Ray lets you see a book's structure at a glance, and lets you peer into the clockwork of books you think work well (and perhaps books you thought did not). Where should it be unbalanced, and where should it be balanced? Which characters get a lot of screentime, and which do not? And importantly, how does that compare to how I've handled the same issues in my own work? It helps me see not only what works in another novel, but also what I can do to improve my own.

Do you have a helpful method for thinking about how you've structured your novels? 

This month I'm participating in the A-Z blog challenge. My theme is "writer hacks," or 26 shortcuts you can do as a writer to get the most out of writing and the journey toward and through publication. Find out more about it at a-to-zchallenge.com, and hop around to read the other cool blogs that are part of the challenge!

Friday, April 26, 2013

Take Word to the Max

I've talked about many of my favorite writing software packages in this A-Z, including Scrivener and Ommwriter. But the reality is, most of the time, you'll find me working in plain old Microsoft Word. What can I say? I'm old school. I'm comfortable with Word, and I like the way it feels. I know the keyboard shortcuts. I get around it easily.

But I find a lot of folks open Word, write some text, and close Word, and if you're going to only do that, you might as well just use something like TextWrangler or WordPad. As they say, the secret's in the sauce. Here are a few ways to get exactly what you want out of Word:

Thursday, April 25, 2013

Edit Better by Switching Views

I was opening a document from an email one day, and it launched directly into this beautiful, full-screen thing, where the print was sized large enough that it was easy to read, and every other application I had was blocked out.

"This is gorgeous," I thought. "It'd be nice to write in this."

I had just discovered reading View.

Say what you want about Microsoft Word (and there's plenty to say), but it does have some pretty nifty features. And like Internet Explorer, MS software still is the default for many users. I actually happen to like Word quite a lot and use it for most of my composition, but I'm a bit nutty as techies go.

Reading view is one of those nifty features. To activate it, go to the "view" tab in Word 2007 or later, then choose "Full-screen reading."
Choosing full screen reading

When you do that, a single page will appear, with your font larger, and with everything else in Word blocked out. Easier to edit, easier to focus, and easier to simply be alone with your words. 

Full screen reading view in action!


This month I'm participating in the A-Z blog challenge. My theme is "writer hacks," or 26 shortcuts you can do as a writer to get the most out of writing and the journey toward and through publication. Find out more about it at a-to-zchallenge.com, and hop around to read the other cool blogs that are part of the challenge!

Wednesday, April 24, 2013

Get Started Easily with Unfinished Work

(CC) by Wouter Kiel
I was talking to my advisor one day about some of my academic writing, and how my fiction writing habits were resulting in better academic papers. I mentioned the bit about getting started at the same time each day. He perked up. "It's also helpful to park downhill," he said.

Park downhill?

Parking downhill refers to leaving some part of your work unfinished. It's super-satisfying to finish a writing session by triumphantly capping off a scene or chapter. But the next morning, booting up and staring at "CHAPTER NINE" can be a stifling thought. It might stall you a few minutes, or it might keep you bouncing around the internet procrastinating for days.

Instead, what my advisor suggested was to leave one section unfinished. Leave with something you have a lot of momentum on, so that you can sit right back down the following day and pick up where you left of. Some writers I know even go as far as to leave off in the middle of a sentence!

Most of the time what I do is leave off in the middle of a scene (or, you know, the methods section of my dissertation) and jot myself a note or two directly into the document of where I'm going next. Then the next morning, when I'm still groggy, I can just connect the dots that I drew the day before...and by the time I've done that, I've got new momentum for the day.

What are your strategies for keeping your muse going from one day to the next?

This month I'm participating in the A-Z blog challenge. My theme is "writer hacks," or 26 shortcuts you can do as a writer to get the most out of writing and the journey toward and through publication. Find out more about it at a-to-zchallenge.com, and hop around to read the other cool blogs that are part of the challenge!

Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Mind the Time


T is for Time, and for Timers.

W. Somerset Maugham has been oft quoted as being asked if he wrote at a set time or only when inspiration struck him. He answered, “I write only when inspiration strikes. Fortunately for me, it strikes every morning precisely at nine.”

I’ve written a lot in these hacks about ritual, with music and software and playlists and so on, but perhaps there is no better writing ritual than time. Sitting down at the keyboard at the same time each day pre-programs the juices to flow in a way that few other things do. It’s recommended in writing book after writing book after writing books (my favorite being How to Write a Lot by Paul Silva, which, while geared toward academic writers, does a great deal for fiction writers as well).

The other T is for Timers. Setting a timer to try to write for a set period is another way to push yourself to stay focused and to write a reasonable amount. Twitter wars like #WriteClub can serve this function, or you can set one yourself. I find that I can challenge myself to write my daily 750 words in one hour, which works out to about 13 words per minute, and I will check up on my pace from time to time. The tick of the timer keeps my momentum moving.  Often I’ll use the PomodoroTechnique of writing for awhile and then breaking; there are online timer tools just for its implementation. 

This month I'm participating in the A-Z blog challenge. My theme is "writer hacks," or 26 shortcuts you can do as a writer to get the most out of writing and the journey toward and through publication. Find out more about it at a-to-zchallenge.com, and hop around to read the other cool blogs that are part of the challenge! 

Monday, April 22, 2013

Using Scrivener to Straighten Out Your Novel

(This one going up late today! I knew I should've written it and queued it ahead of leaving for the weekend, but I always think I'll have time to write a post in the morning. While I'm grading. And lesson-planning. And trying to run out the door.)

So, about a year ago, I decided to take NaNoWriMo up on their offer for 50% off the price of Scrivener.

And like many writers, I was smitten. 

Scrivener allows you to break apart a novel and see it in pieces; you can see each scene on its own, re-order them, summarize a scene on a notecard (that stays with the scene), keep track of your notes, keep track of your progress with revision, and much, much more. It took me about a week to get used to using it, but now I write everything that is longer than a page or two in it, including all my academic work.

Some of my favorite features:

  • Reordering scenes—you work on your novel scene by scene, and if you need to reorder them, you can do so just by a simple drag-and-drop. 
  • Bulletin board—by the same token, you can summarize each scene on an "index card" and view your whole novel scene-by-scene on a bulletin board (and drag-and-drop if you need to). 
  • Revision status—when I'm working on a revision, I can mark each scene as to its writing/revision status: to-do, needs-revising, revised, final. These are also all customizable, so you can create your own set of relevant revision tags. 
  • Side-by-side windows—you can bring up two parts of your novel side-by-side, or your novel and a reference piece, or anything else. Great for doing a ground-up rewrite of a scene, changing a scene's POV, or, in the case of the other writing I do, referring to an article while writing a paper. 
  • iPad app—this is a "coming soon" feature, but I'm delighted I'll be able to interface with my iPad when it drops! 

I've found Scrivener to be absolutely invaluable in the year I've used it, and I'm anxiously awaiting Scrivener 2.0 for Windows (mac users are lucky ducks who already have the 2.0 version!). It was more than worth the $20 I paid for it, and would be more than worth the $40 at full price. And best of all, if you'd like to try it out, they have one of the best trials in the universe: 30 days of actual use, not just 30 days. So if you use it one day per week, you can use it for 30 weeks before you have to purchase the full version. I purchased the full version after about 4 hours, but your mileage may vary. :)

Do you use special writing software? Which ones have you tried, and what do you prefer?

Scrivener

This month I'm participating in the A-Z blog challenge. My theme is "writer hacks," or 26 shortcuts you can do as a writer to get the most out of writing and the journey toward and through publication. Find out more about it at a-to-zchallenge.com, and hop around to read the other cool blogs that are part of the challenge! 

Saturday, April 20, 2013

Format Pretty and Share Like Crazy with Rich Text Format

Writers often need to send things around. To your betas or CPs, if you're still working on that first draft; to an agent (and sometimes copied into an email), if you're querying; and to your agent and editor if you're at the publishing stage. You may have a PC running Windows 7, and need to send to a Mac running Lion, or an old Mac running SnowLeopard, or from GMail to someone on Outlook—the list goes on and on. And maybe you write in Word 2013, but they work in Open Office, or you're writing in Pages, and they're reading on a Kindle...

...you see where I'm going here.

I run into a surprisingly large number of people who don't know that there's a file format that solves 99.9% of the problems you run into sharing a file from machine to machine and device to device. It's called Rich Text Format, and has the extension .rtf.  It's a .txt file with just the bare bones of formatting: like .txt files, it's cross-platform, but unlike .txt, you can retain your basic formatting, like em-dashes, italics, and underline. You can dump its results into an e-mail program, and most will parse it easily, keeping your paragraph breaks and line spacing intact. And your critique partners can even make margin comments and text corrections, and they'll show up in your program (presuming both of you are using software that allows for commenting).

To use it, when you're saving your file in your word processor, look for the dropdown box below the filename. Usually, you can change it from whatever the default is for your word processor to an .rtf, and boom! Totally shareable file. 

It's a great "in-between" from a .docx Word 2007+ file that gets garbled on your friend's machine and a .txt file that kills all the prettiness you put into your document, and a great way to make sure that everyone who reads your manuscript can focus on your brilliant words, instead of whether or not they can open your file.

This month I'm participating in the A-Z blog challenge. My theme is "writer hacks," or 26 shortcuts you can do as a writer to get the most out of writing and the journey toward and through publication. Find out more about it at a-to-zchallenge.com, and hop around to read the other cool blogs that are part of the challenge! 

Friday, April 19, 2013

Give Yourself a Quota

The first year I tried NaNoWriMo, I wrote about 700 words and then stopped completely. (I still count that as a year that I tried though—I'm masochistic like that!) But I think one of the reasons that year failed so spectacularly was that I had no idea how many words per day 50,000 words worked out to be. I could've picked up a calculator, but the thought to do so just didn't occur to me.

The following year, I'd bought Chris Baty's No Plot? No Problem! which had a handy-dandy little chart breaking down each day's writing requirement: day 1, 1667, day 2, 3334, day 3, 5001, and so on and so on. (This was in the days before all the fancy metrics on the NaNoWriMo site itself).

And I finished.

Turns out, having the daily goal right there was part of the key.

Many authors swear by writing a set number of words each day. In On Writing, Stephen King recommends 1,000 words. Nora Roberts is said to sit at her desk and write 9-5, 50 weeks a year just like any other working stiff. One of the first novel writing books I ever read, How to Write & Sell Your First Novel recommended 750 words per day.

But whatever the quota is, there seems to be little doubt that the quota helps. Gives you something to keep track of, and keeps you moving forward as you see yourself inching toward you goal.

Right now, I'm using 750words.com to help me reach my 750-words a day quota. Do you have a daily (or weekly) writing quota? How do you track it? Do you find it helpful?

This month I'm participating in the A-Z blog challenge. My theme is "writer hacks," or 26 shortcuts you can do as a writer to get the most out of writing and the journey toward and through publication. Find out more about it at a-to-zchallenge.com, and hop around to read the other cool blogs that are part of the challenge! 

Thursday, April 18, 2013

Make Creative Playlists -- Post 100!

I started my blog a little less than two years ago. By some strange fluke, I reached the same number of posts in 2011 as I did in 2012—exactly 33. This is my 34th post for 2013, which means two things: 1, it marks me officially making 2013 the year in which I finally am hitting my stride with my blog, and 2, this means that this is my 100th post! Thank you to all of you, and to all my new followers as well. I'm tempted to run a giveaway, perhaps at the end of A-Z, as a thank you, so stay tuned! 

On to A-Z: I mentioned earlier this month that I'm a little intimidated by people who have playlists for their books. I'm not sure where the fad came from, but it seems these days every author has a list of songs that inspired her for different sections of the book.

But while I can't always find a one-to-one correlation between parts of my story and particular songs, I do find that often it can be useful to put together music that inspires. For instance, I have a "cleaning" playlist, which my friends point out really is more of a "songs I can sing at the top of my lungs" kind of list. And even though I do most of my writing to Bach, I have a playlist that contains six CDs worth of music.

So if you're a music person, think about putting some of the music that inspires you into a single list. iTunes is probably the easiest and most familiar tool for this (and its purchasing features are great for instant gratification), but did you know you can also create playlists on YouTube? Gather a bunch of songs you like, and place them in a playlist to run end-to-end. It's a great way to explore music without necessarily springing for the whole album. Online streaming services like Pandora and Spotify can serve up a genre of music that inspires you as well.

And if you need specific inspiration, the YA Misfits run a weekly feature about the music that inspires them, and Operation Awesome frequently run posts about good writing music as well.

Do you use a playlist? And if you do, is it the music or the lyrics that you attend to in deciding which songs go on the list? Do you write to specific genres of music? Are you an instrumental-only person?

This month I'm participating in the A-Z blog challenge. My theme is "writer hacks," or 26 shortcuts you can do as a writer to get the most out of writing and the journey toward and through publication. Find out more about it at a-to-zchallenge.com, and hop around to read the other cool blogs that are part of the challenge! 

Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Use OmmWriter to Write Your Zen


The NaNoWriMo before last, I discovered an awesome program. It's called Ommwriter (with two m's, like the chant). The entire idea is to get your writing to a Zenlike state—it takes over your entire screen, provides you with a soothing background, gives you zen background music and typewriter sounds, and just cuts you loose with your writing.

Like with using music, I've found that the Ommwriter background sounds get me into the groove of writing; when I see the screen and hear the music, something inside says, "Aha. Time to let fly." I often finish a session in Ommwriter and am blown away by the number of words I've produced.

Best of all? It's free. And for the extended version, which has more sounds and more backgrounds, you give an at-will donation ($4.11 I believe is suggested).

A screencapture of Ommwriting in progress!
Check out the video on their site! It explains the software far better than I do.

Ommwriter 

This month I'm participating in the A-Z blog challenge. My theme is "writer hacks," or 26 shortcuts you can do as a writer to get the most out of writing and the journey toward and through publication. Find out more about it at a-to-zchallenge.com, and hop around to read the other cool blogs that are part of the challenge! 

Tuesday, April 16, 2013

Make Writing a Sport with NaNoWriMo

In my creative writing seminar in my senior year of college, one of the other students kept coming in with a hoodie on. It had this strange word across the front:

NaNoWriMo

Our professor asked her what it stood for. "National Novel Writing Month," she said. "You write a 50,000-word novel in 30 days." 

Like many, our professor scoffed at the idea. What kind of good work can you produce in 30 days? 

Well, with the ever-growing number of books that are coming out having begun as a NaNoWriMo challenge, the answer very well may be...a lot. 

I've participated in NaNoWriMo for a full decade now, and while I haven't finished every year (but I've finished more often than I haven't!), it's a funny thing...it works. See, NaNo creates competition. Humans thrive on competition. You know this firsthand if you've ever tried to get a little kid to clean up by saying, "I bet I can put more toys in the toybox than you can!" Something about feeling like you're doing something and accountable to other people for "winning" creates a primal drive that can get you to do almost anything.  

Now, the Office of Letters and Light sponsors two other noveling events each year, during Camp NaNoWriMo. So no matter where you are in the year, a 30-day frenzy isn't too far away. Yes, yes, ideally, we all write a little bit every day. But if you've fallen off the wagon and need a kick in the pants to get you moving, or just want to step on the accelerator with a work you've had jangling around in the recesses of your brain...log on to NaNoWriMo.org and make your writing a no-holds-barred competition.

And if you're not into NaNoWriMo, there are lots of other ways to create competition--try doing a word war with your critique partner(s), or for year-round NaNo-like craziness (including the fun of community!) join the #WriteClub hashtag for word sprints on Twitter.

 
NaNoWriMo (Novermber)
Camp NaNoWriMo (April and July)
What is Write Club? (Megan Whitmer's Blog)

This month I'm participating in the A-Z blog challenge. My theme is "writer hacks," or 26 shortcuts you can do as a writer to get the most out of writing and the journey toward and through publication. Find out more about it at a-to-zchallenge.com, and hop around to read the other cool blogs that are part of the challenge! 



Monday, April 15, 2013

Foster Pavlovian Creativity with Music

I mentioned in my post about iTunes that most of the time, I write to the Bach unaccompanied suites for cello (the version recorded by Yo-Yo Ma). It was through this that I started to understand the power of Music in my writing routine.

I always start my cello playlist with the first suite, first movement, "Prelude." And after a long time, I started to notice something. Hearing the opening bars of Prelude would bring up issues in my work; either a spark of creativity for where to go next, an idea for a future scene down the road, or a way to go forward with something I'd gotten stuck on.

The music itself was creating the idea in my mind: "It's time to write."

Now, this tip probably isn't for everyone. Some people need silence when they write, or they really need to hear something different every time. However, it can be worth trying at least for a little while. There are lots of studies out there showing that routine and ritual are some of the keys to good habits, and incorporating sound into your routine to elicit a particular response...

...well, Pavlov discovered the value of that technique ages ago.

 
Not Yo-Yo, of course, but uploaded by the performer himself. Here there be no pirates!

This month I'm participating in the A-Z blog challenge. My theme is "writer hacks," or 26 shortcuts you can do as a writer to get the most out of writing and the journey toward and through publication. Find out more about it at a-to-zchallenge.com, and hop around to read the other cool blogs that are part of the challenge! 



Saturday, April 13, 2013

Let Your Library Work For You

Do you know what's at your local library? The books, of course you know about: it's a super place to get other books to read, maybe check out some comp titles, or read some children's nonfiction.

But did you know that many libraries also give you access to things like:
  • Electronic books and audiobooks
  • Academic journals
  • Free classes (maybe on things you're researching, or maybe just yoga to de-stress!)
In addition, often you can "hack" your library by ordering books through your library's website and reserving them for pickup. This can save a TON of time, and can make the difference between borrowing a book and feeling as though you need to buy it for convenience. My neighborhood library was recently renovated and is a gorgeous place to read and browse (they even have a whole floor just for YA!), but I still don't often have much time to spend there. No worries—I order books to pick up, stop in on my way to or from the bus, grab them, and then drop them in the book depository when I'm finished.

As writers and readers, one of the best places we can support are our libraries. So make sure you're getting the most out of yours.

This month I'm participating in the A-Z blog challenge. My theme is "writer hacks," or 26 shortcuts you can do as a writer to get the most out of writing and the journey toward and through publication. Find out more about it at a-to-zchallenge.com, and hop around to read the other cool blogs that are part of the challenge! 

Friday, April 12, 2013

Speed Up Your Keyboard

Unless you write in longhand and somehow have a typist you've hired (in which case, wow!), if you're writing, you're spending a lot of time at your keyboard. And if you're like most keyboardists, keyboarding is one of the major places you can speed up your time.

I'm not talking Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing (although really, if you type slowly, a good typing tutor will help you out a lot!) but making a few tweaks to how you use your keyboard. These are Windows based, because that's my OS, but these work on Apples as well (usually substituting the Apple key for Ctrl.) I've read places that using a mouse slows down your computing experience by 30% or more, so the more you can control from your keyboard, the more efficient you'll be.


Thursday, April 11, 2013

Tsjuz Your Blog With Jump Breaks

J is for Jump Breaks, or the things that keep your blog looking neat.

Some of us are, erm, for lack of a better word...well, wordy. And so when we get going on a blog post, it's really easy to post something that takes up ALL THE SPACE on the front page of our blogs. And if you're using your blog as your main author page, presenting a page that scrolls forever and ever is just sort of unsightly, and it can make you appear even wordier than you actually are.

So...insert a break. When you know you're going to go on more than a few hundred words, write a pithy intro to your post (you're doing that anyway, right?) and then click the jump break button. Here's what it looks like on Blogger:






And on Wordpress:




If you have some HTML and CSS skills, you can even customize what the jump break looks like  I created a little scotch-taped "read more" paper scrap to match my blog's template. Using jump breaks keeps your posts tidy, and your readers' browsing experience even tidier. Happy blogging!

This month I'm participating in the A-Z blog challenge. My theme is "writer hacks," or 26 shortcuts you can do as a writer to get the most out of writing and the journey toward and through publication. Find out more about it at a-to-zchallenge.com, and hop around to read the other cool blogs that are part of the challenge!

Wednesday, April 10, 2013

Instant Inspiration with iTunes

One of my most indispensable writing tools is iTunes. 

Now, I don't much care for playlists. I almost never have a playlist for any given novel, and I'm always amazed (and a little intimidated!) by writers who do have a list of songs that inspired them for each part of their books. I do most of my writing to the Bach unaccompanied cello suites or to the background music in Ommwriter (that's O, by the way—more on it later!).

But every now and then, I do have a need to hear a specific song. I'll just get this weird sense that one song would be a great catalyst for the scene or chapter I'm writing. So for that reason, I ask for gift cards to iTunes for small occasions, and let my friends and family know that iTunes cards never go to waste. That way, I keep a balance at all times, and whenever I just have to have a song to write to, I just go and buy it with my balance, utterly guilt-free. 

You can find similar services on Amazon Music. And if you want to be truly cheap frugal, these days a lot of artists are putting professional recordings on YouTube/Vimeo, although you usually have to create a playlist to get the songs you want to loop, and the non-pirated versions (if you're picky like me and try not to listen to pirated music) usually have ads. 


This month I'm participating in the A-Z blog challenge. My theme is "writer hacks," or 26 shortcuts you can do as a writer to get the most out of writing and the journey toward and through publication. Find out more about it at a-to-zchallenge.com, and hop around to read the other cool blogs that are part of the challenge!

Tuesday, April 09, 2013

Cancel Noise With Headphones

One of my most useful writing tools is my pair of noise-cancelling Headphones. My sister-in-law gave them to me for helping her move, and I admit, I might not have dropped $150-$300 on a set when earbuds seem to suffice.

But let me tell you a story about my headphones. See, last summer, this strange straight-line thunderstorm called a derecho hit Washington, D.C. like a freight train. I'm fortunate to live in an area where power lines are buried, but a lot of people lost power for weeks. Basically, it consisted of hurricane-force winds, rain, hail, thunder and lightning.

I had absolutely no idea it was even going on.

The storm hit on June 29, the day before Camp NaNoWriMo ended, and as usual, I was frantically typing away, trying to get my 50,000 words in.  So I had on my noise-cancelling 'phones, and it wasn't until I stopped to take a break that I looked out my window.

The weather was so crazy that I kid you not, I turned back to my computer to be certain I hadn't missed a tornado warning.

So, take my word for it—these suckers WORK. And they let you write in just about any environment. For me, that's more than worth the price, and when/if mine ever die, I'll be shelling out for another pair right away.

This month I'm participating in the A-Z blog challenge. My theme is "writer hacks," or 26 shortcuts you can do as a writer to get the most out of writing and the journey toward and through publication. Find out more about it at a-to-zchallenge.com, and hop around to read the other cool blogs that are part of the challenge!

Monday, April 08, 2013

Shelve for Your Purposes on Goodreads

G is for Goodreads, or rather, tweaking Goodreads shelves so that the info you need appears together.

Although I'm a little skeptical about the long-term effects of Amazon purchasing Goodreads, at this point in time, I get a lot of use out of the service, and so, at this time, I'm still recommending it. I've blogged before about how its progress-tracking tools have resulted in a huge increase in my reading this year, and I think it's a great service. And one thing I think is particularly great? The shelves.

Sure, you have the default shelves: reading, currently-reading, to-read. But on top of that, you can add your own. I've seen shelves that serve as metacommentary on the books themselves: "swoony-book-boyfriend" "obnoxious-vapid-female-leads" "drop-everything-and-read-now" and the like. And then there are people who mark things like genre, etc., with their shelves, for instance, "YA," "New Adult," "Paranormal" and the like. But there are a lot of other great uses for Goodreads shelves beyond simply identifying how much you liked the book or what genre it is. 

The great thing about Goodreads shelves is that they cause your books to appear in groups. So it's a great way to keep your data on books in one place. For me, as an author who hopes to get back on the query-go-round later this year, one of the big things I'm concerned with is who is repping what. So as I find out a book is repped by Agent A, I will shelve that book under "Agent A." That way, when I go to query, I can quickly bring up all the books I know that are repped by that particular agent.

Having worked in publishing, I also got used to thinking about books in terms of the imprints that publish them, so you'll also see my goodreads full of shelves like "Ecco" and "Sourcebooks Fire" and "Ember." I can bring up a list of books published by any given publisher, and, at a glance, see which publisher's books I'm reading a lot of.

Some other things I use Goodreads shelves for: identifying advance copies versus published titles, books on my nook versus books I have physical copies of, and I have one shelf (that I really need to go to town on!) called "needs-review."

So think about what information you'd like to have easily at your fingertips, and shelve your books accordingly. It's a great way to keep tabs on whatever it is about your books that is most important to you.

How do I create my own shelves? (Goodreads FAQ)

This month I'm participating in the A-Z blog challenge. My theme is "writer hacks," or 26 shortcuts you can do as a writer to get the most out of writing and the journey toward and through publication. Find out more about it at a-to-zchallenge.com, and hop around to read the other cool blogs that are part of the challenge!


Saturday, April 06, 2013

Get "Freedom" From Distraction


We all know the internet can be one hell of a timesuck. It's so much easier to view that nineteenth cute cat video than it is to sit down and work on the WIP. I've written before about how to firewall your attention with a lamp timer that's set to turn your internet on and off at set times. But there are also software options as well.

A number of writers swear by using Freedom, a software designed to disable your access to the internet for predetermined intervals. If you want to get back online before your time is up, you'll have to save your WIP, close all your windows, and reboot your computer—enough of a hassle to keep most people on task. It's used by writers like Nick Hornby, Dave Eggers, Timothy Ferriss  and Seth Godin. Here's hoping a little of their success rubs off on all of us who use it!

Freedom

This month I'm participating in the A-Z blog challenge. My theme is "writer hacks," or 26 shortcuts you can do as a writer to get the most out of writing and the journey toward and through publication. Find out more about it at a-to-zchallenge.com, and hop around to read the other cool blogs that are part of the challenge!



Friday, April 05, 2013

Capture Ideas with Evernote

E is for Evernote, the universal-platform note-keeper. I first found out about Evernote on the forums for Getting Things Done, the book by David Allen, but it wasn't until I added my iPad and iPhone to my tech gagetry that I became a convert.

So for that reason, I suggest that Evernote is perhaps not the best choice for those who don't own a smartphone and/or tablet. You just won't get as much out of the "on the fly note-taking" (though you still may appreciate the syncing). But if you do? Holy cow. I just started using it three months ago when I became an iPad owner, and well...let's  say now I understand the hype.

In Evernote, you can sync across every device you own: PC, Mac, Android—doesn't matter. You can even access your own notes via the web. And you can make darn near anything a "note..." Want to record something? Go ahead. Have a handout at that meeting? Touch the camera icon and snap a photo of it. And of course, you can just take notes, too.

If you're like me, the muse sometimes strikes in really inconvenient places, and the perfect line of dialogue or the exact image you need to make the transition that's had you stuck for weeks pops up when you least have the ability to wrangle it. But now, if you want to jot some of your WIP on the subway, you can do so, and let it sync back up with your laptop or desktop when you next have a good connection. Or if you see a billboard with the perfect embodiment of your main character, just snap a photo.

You can organize your notes into notebooks, or let them float free, since Evernote has a fantastic search tool, as well. You can even take photos of text and make it searchable.

Best of all, the basic service, which gives you all most people would ever need, is completely free.

I use it for taking notes on data for my students, for jotting down ideas that come to me about my WIP, or for crafting whole scenes on the go. Although I prefer to write in Word and Scrivener, I know some novelists who write their entire novels on Evernote and use the notebooks to organize their ideas.

I'll stop, before I sound any more like an ad (seriously, I love this program), but this is one of my writers' tools that I'm glad I dove into, and which I can't imagine living without again. I encourage you to give it a try.

Evernote

This month I'm participating in the A-Z blog challenge. My theme is "writer hacks," or 26 shortcuts you can do as a writer to get the most out of writing and the journey toward and through publication. Find out more about it at a-to-zchallenge.com, and hop around to read the other cool blogs that are part of the challenge!

Thursday, April 04, 2013

Make Your Desk Environment Work

My D writer hack is for Desk Environment. If you're serious about writing, you're probably spending some reasonable amount of time writing each day. Given that, it's helpful to take the time to make your desk or other writing space work for you. 

Some things to think about:

  • Ergonomics. Yes, writing curled up on the couch with your cat and a cup of coffee feels nicely indulgent. But it can be hell on your back. One of the better investments I ever made was in a decent desk chair with a mesh back and adjustable everything, so that I could set it to exactly what I need to write. Since I freelance for extra money, write with hopes of publication, and 
  • Appearance. What's appealing to you? No two people like the same environment. Do you need sun? Color? A plant? Room for the cat? You'll spend time in your writing area (one hopes), so make it visually appealing.
  • Organization. Yech, I know. But my favorite definition of "organized" is that organization means that you know where everything is—even if its place is "In the middle of the giant stack on the left." Are you a super type-A  like me who needs a step file sorter and an inbox/outbox to feel like a pro? Or do you thrive on the chaos of balled-up papers from the last round of edits and a few leftover cups of coffee? Think about what you need and create it. 
  • Supplies/Reference. I do academic writing, freelance work, and fiction writing from my desk. So one thing I've done for myself is keep all the necessaries at hand—a shelf above my desk holds dictionaries, style guides, and notebooks for all my WIPs, and a full bookshelf within arms' reach has two shelves of books on my academic discipline, and a full shelf of writing books (as well as supplies and knicknacks and whatnot). Maybe all you need is the dictionary on your computer and room for a big mug of coffee. Or maybe you need a fifth of vodka for those times your characters are getting out of hand. Whatever it is you need, keep it close at hand.

One of the best things about having a good desk environment is that when a place is appealing to write, you'll write in the same place—and when you write in the same place, the mere act of sitting down there can literally fuel you to write. When I plunk down in my desk chair, I know I mean business...and that's a helpful mode to get myself into.


And lest you assume from this post that I must be a complete Type-A neatnik--a photo of my writing space in its usual "in use" state.



Some desk inspiration for you: Lifehacker's Featured Workspace Page. Or check out this post by Kendall at Blogging for YA about Judy Blume's envy-inducing writing space!

Do you have a favorite thing about your writing area?  Or is there one you lust after?


This month I'm participating in the A-Z blog challenge. My theme is "writer hacks," or 26 shortcuts you can take as a writer to get the most out of writing and the journey toward and through publication. Find out more about it at a-to-zchallenge.com, and hop around to read the other cool blogs that are part of the challenge!

Wednesday, April 03, 2013

Use Children's Nonfiction for Research

The C writer hack is for Children's Nonfiction, or Using Children's Nonfiction for Research

This is one of my absolute favorite writer hacks, one I discovered while researching some history for fanfiction. I needed the information, but I didn't want to spend forever hunting it down and reading some dissertation on my topic just to write a fanwork.

So I took a shortcut. I headed to the children's section.

Children's nonfiction is a great place to start for story research. Not only is it appealing and quick to read, it is often full of illustrations and the kinds of fun, interesting factoids about life as a 17th century peasant/ police officer/ child of a president (to name a few that I've looked up) that really allow your writing to pop. And if it turns out to not be quite enough information, just check the index in the back for that book's source material—you can always grab the sources if you need more.

DK Eyewitness Children's Nonfiction


This month I'm participating in the A-Z blog challenge. My theme is "writer hacks," or 26 shortcuts you can take as a writer to get the most out of writing and the journey toward and through publication. Find out more about it at a-to-zchallenge.com, and hop around to read the other cool blogs that are part of the challenge!

Tuesday, April 02, 2013

7 Things a Writer Should Do at The Bookstore


One of my favorite indie bookstores, Kramerbooks.
B is for Bookstore, or specifically, 7 Things a Writer Should Do At The Bookstore.

If you're a writer serious about publication, whether trade or self-publishing, there is no better place for you to spend a good amount of time than your bookstore. I spend a ton of time in mine—I work there! And all those hours gives me some insight into what kinds of things have been insanely helpful in my own understanding of publishing and bookselling more generally.


  1. Go beyond the bestsellers. Most people wander into a bookstore and mostly browse the bestellers or the books that are on co-op (the endcaps and tables—those are mostly paid promotional spots that are figured into a book's marketing budget). If you'd like to really get a broad view of what's being published, you have to dig a little deeper. One easy place to look is in a new release area for a given section. These are often constantly being updated with new titles as they come out, and frequent visits will open your eyes to books you might not hear about otherwise.  
  2. Look at covers. This is more helpful for the self-publishing authors out there, but sometimes it can be helpful for trade published authors as well, if for no other reason than to feel comfort about the cover designed for their title. Booksellers can often tell from a cover what genre a book is and what demographic it's geared for, and readers, can, too. It's important to have a sense of what covers for books like yours look like.  
  3. Check out the spine-out books. Yes, faced-out books and books on a promo rack, endcap, or table are eye-catching. But a lot of more interesting information about the publishing industry is to be seen in the spine-out titles. How many copies of each book are there? Are the books like yours mostly bought in onesies and twosies, or do they have huge stacks? Is the section dominated by a few authors? This information can be valuable as you think about what your goals are on your publication journey. (And again, you'll probably find some neat titles you weren't aware of!)
  4. Figure out your genre. Some authors have trouble categorizing their books, or insist their books defy categorization (almost always not true). The advantage of being in a bricks-and-mortar bookstore is that you can physically walk through the different genres. Where are the books like yours shelved? What is the sign on top of their shelf? This will at least give you a broad place to start.
  5. Ask about sales. Technically, most booksellers aren't supposed to talk about sales. But almost all of us do. Exact numbers are often taboo, but you'll get information about what titles are flying out the door versus ones that sell more slowly. It's never a good idea to try to catch a trend in publishing—you'll be a couple years behind the curve, more than likely, but again, it can help with your own goal-setting.
  6. Write. Bookstores are great places to huddle up with your laptop and just soak in the inspiration. I think it leeches out of the books. So find a good place to plug in and do so. But don't forget to...
  7. Buy books! I'm of the firm belief that no matter how much ebooks explode, the continued existence of bricks-and-mortar bookstores is important for authors. Many online book sales are still originating in bricks-and-mortar stores. So while you're there, don't forget to support the store by buying a new title or two. Even better if it's a local independent bookstore.

Writing can be a solitary endeavor. So every now and again, hit up your bookstore, for the social aspect and the knowledge both. And have fun!



This month I'm participating in the A-Z blog challenge. My theme is "writer hacks," or 26 shortcuts you can do as a writer to get the most out of writing and the journey toward and through publication. Find out more about it at a-to-zchallenge.com, and hop around to read the other cool blogs that are part of the challenge!



Monday, April 01, 2013

Use Amazon to Find Great Comp Titles

First of all, welcome to my rendition of the A-Z Blog Challenge! Blogging from A-Z is all about getting words out there, every single day. As this is probably my biggest struggle as a writer, I'm all about it. Plus, I can't wait to make some new friends in the blogosphere. So welcome to my blog, and let me say now I'm looking forward to visiting yours!

The A-Z Blog Challenge was started by Arlee Bird, and as such, since today is "A," we're all giving him a shoutout. It's a phenomenal idea, has only steamrolled into a larger and larger community with each year, and I'm happy to make this year my first year participating. Thank you, Arlee, for creating such a fun challenge! You can check out Arlee's blog at Tossing It Out.  


My other A for today is Amazon. Or specifically, How to use Amazon to Find Comp Titles. If you're like me, you've heard a lot about comps: pick a good one, don't use a mega-bestseller, find one that reasonably represents what you write, but isn't such a precise match that an agent or publisher will think your book has already been written.

And if you're like me, this left you scratching your head. How on earth are you supposed to find a book that meets all those criteria?

Well, we have a super, free, and easy to use comp title resource in Amazon. The guys and gals over there spend all their days aggregating data—who says they should be the only ones who get to mine it?

Here's how to do it.

  1. Find a book you've read that's somewhat like yours.
  2. Check the "Customers Also Bought" links at the bottom of the page. Most often, these are going to be books in the same genre. Read their summaries, download a sample of the ebook to your tablet if you have one to check out the writing style, etc. BUT DIG DEEP! The first few books in this pile will be the books everybody is reading; those mega bestsellers that don't do you a lot of good as a querying author—as much as my books might be like John Green's, I don't want anyone to think I've  put on airs about how big I think I might sell. So click through three, four screens until you see books you haven't heard of before. Check *those* out. 
  3. Check the sub/sub/sub genre. These days, Amazon thrives on metadata. (See a great post by agent Kristin Nelson on that here.) You'll see books being ranked as #1...but in Romance > Cowboy > Billionaire > With Pet Dragon > Who Turns Into Human. It seems silly, but it's a huge boon to you. Go to the lowest part of that sub-genre of a book, and see what other books are there with it. Then back up a level (to "Billionaire" in my fake example), and check out the books there. The more detailed you go in the hierarchy, the more likely you are to find books that are close to yours...and ones that not everyone on the planet has heard about, but which nonetheless have decent sales. 
  4. Look at the person who wrote the most popular review. You can say a lot of very valid bad things about Amazon reviews. But one great thing about them is that prolific reviewers often review in the same genres, because that's what they like to read. So find the most popular review, or the review you agree with most, and click on "See This Person's Other Reviews." Boom. More comps. 
  5. Hit your library. If you're made of money, great. Go ahead and add these cool books to your cart and click "purchase" (or load them on your e-reader). But if you're of more modest means like most of us, add them to your cart...and then print your cart and hit your library's website instead. You don't need to own your comp titles, and you don't even need to read all of every single one of them...you just want to find books that are enough like yours that you can lift them up as good examples.

So have fun, but be careful...looking for comp titles is sure to land you a new favorite author or two.  Happy hunting!



This month I'm participating in the A-Z blog challenge. My theme is "writer hacks," or 26 shortcuts you can do as a writer to get the most out of writing and the journey toward and through publication. Find out more about it at a-to-zchallenge.com, and hop around to read the other cool blogs that are part of the challenge!


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