Guest Post: Four Tips for Making the Most of Writing Workshops by Lauren Bailey

For fiction and nonfiction writers alike, going it completely alone is a difficult process that takes much longer without the encouragement and support from a group. Of course, enrolling in a writing workshop is by no means a necessary step in becoming a published author, but I feel that every writer can stand to benefit from the experience of learning and honing writing techniques in a group setting, even if you try it only once. It’s certainly an experience that can expand your writing horizons, especially if you approach workshops the right way. While there are various different types of writing workshops, the most useful in my experience has been the critique workshop, in which each writer writes at least one piece, and everyone in the group works together in critiquing the piece constructively. To make the most out of these types of workshops, here are a few tips:

1. Always come prepared.

Most of the work done while participating in a writing workshop is usually completed outside the group meeting itself. There are three main components that most writing workshops share—reading material written by published authors, reading and critiquing participants’ work, and writing one or more pieces to share with the rest of the group. Many first-time workshop participants spend too much time drafting their piece, effectively missing out on developing skills that are just as important like editing and reading published work analytically.

2. When your piece is being critiqued, listen attentively, take notes, and ask questions.

Perhaps the strangest part about attending writing workshops, the one that takes the most getting used to, is being “judged” by a panel of your peers. In most workshops, the group will discuss your writing aloud, but they will not refer to you by name, only “the writer.” Although it may initially seem like an intimidating process, keep yourself busy by taking extensive notes. Remember that a writing workshop is an incredible opportunity to get feedback from other writers, so respect the time everyone put into critiquing your work by honestly considering what everyone has to say.

3. Learn to take good advice and discard bad advice.

Many writers criticize workshops because you are essentially learning from others who are amateurs themselves. Too much conflicting criticism from a diverse group of writers may cause you to change your work so much that it’s no longer uniquely yours. The best way to avoid this scenario is to consider all criticism first. Analyze each person’s critiques carefully, noting which writers share your vision, and which are more prone to pushing their sense of style onto others. It’s also advisable to keep track of the number of comments that you receive criticizing the same problem. If many people see a problem with a particular scene or aspect of a particular character, then you should seriously consider reworking these specific parts with which many have taken issue.

4. Put time and effort into critiquing others’ work. It’ll make you a stronger editor and writer.

When I first attended a writing workshop, I spent the least amount of time critiquing others’ work because I was so engrossed in writing my own short story drafts. What I didn’t know at the time was that this practice eventually backfires in a workshop setting. For one, if you don’t put much effort into critiquing others’ work, your peers won’t put much effort into your work—workshops are definitely a two-way street. What’s more, carefully reading other participants work helps you to develop your eye for common writing mistakes. Since it’s so much easier to find fault in others work than our own, practicing editing others’ work will make you a better editor of your writing eventually.

If you haven’t yet joined a writing workshop, I highly recommend trying it out. Even if you don’t find the experience very helpful, you will have at least met a group of writers that share with you the joys and frustrations of artistic creation.

If you aren’t sure where to find a workshop or critique group, ask your local library, community college, or arts organization. For writer’s conferences and retreats, which involve participants spending several days in a specific setting with writers from around the country, check out this comprehensive listing. If you need guidance on forming your own critique group, be sure to read Lillie Amman’s previous advice here. Good luck!

By-line:

This guest post is contributed by Lauren Bailey, who regularly writes for best online colleges. She welcomes your comments at her email Id: blauren99@gmail.com.

I Love to Write Day 2011

Today marks the tenth observance of I Love to Write Day. The official website lists a number of suggested activities for the day.

I can think of no better activity for I Love to Write Day than simply to write! Start your novel, meet your quota for NaNoWriMo, compile a blog post, pen a letter, compose a poem or essay or short story, write something from your heart.

It is said that an individual has to write a million words before he or she is a skilled writer. Today is a great day to write a few of those million words.

photo credit: juliejordanscott

November is Lifewriting Month

In addition to being National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), November is National Lifewriting Month. Although you aren’t likely to find lifewriting in the dictionary, you can probably guess its meaning–writing about life, specifically memoir and family history.

I encourage everyone to write their own or their family’s life stories. In my ebook, Preserving Memories: How to Write a  Family History, I say:

After my father died, my mother became very depressed and withdrawn. I convinced her to attend a writing conference with me by telling her I didn’t want to stay in the hotel alone. She attended one conference session — a seminar on writing essays. She wanted to try her hand at an essay but couldn’t decide on a topic, so I suggested she write about our trip. After that successful attempt, my siblings and I encouraged her to write about her own life.

She wrote what she called her “stories” in longhand on notebook paper. I transcribed them, making only minor corrections in her spelling, punctuation, and grammar. I scanned family photos and added them in appropriate places. We printed the stories on my computer printer and inserted the pages in loose-leaf binders so she could give a book to each of her adult children for Christmas; each year after that, she wrote more stories to add to the book.

These stories quickly became cherished family treasures. Teenaged grandchildren put aside video games to read their parents’ copies of their grandmother’s memoirs. Siblings pointed to stories and asked each other, “Did you know that?” Family members shared laughter and tears when the stories were given as gifts, and now, years after my mother died, those loose-leaf binders filled with family stories have become treasured legacies, possibly even more valued than money or property.

The same can be true for you. Your personal memoirs or your family history can be the greatest treasure you can leave your family because you’re sharing your life and yourself.

A memoir or family history doesn’t have to be a published book to be meaningful. It can be typed in a word processor, recorded on a tape recorder, captured in a video, or assembled in a scrapbook.

Denis Ledoux, author of Turning Memories Into Memoirs: A Handbook for Writing Lifestories and originator of National Lifewriting Month, shares tips for getting started on your memoir in the article November Celebrates Memoir Writing.

A memoir or family history may seem like an overwhelming project, but Preserving Memories helps you break it down into manageable tasks so you, too, can leave your loved ones a precious legacy: your life story or the story of your family.

Have you done any lifewriting? If not, why not give it a try during National Lifewriting Month?

NaNoWriMo: Overcoming First Draft Paralysis

November is National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). According to the website:

National Novel Writing Month is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to novel writing. Participants begin writing on November 1. The goal is to write a 50,000 word, (approximately 175 page) novel by 11:59:59, November 30.

Valuing enthusiasm and perseverance over painstaking craft, NaNoWriMo is a novel-writing program for everyone who has thought fleetingly about writing a novel but has been scared away by the time and effort involved.

Because of the limited writing window, the ONLY thing that matters in NaNoWriMo is output. It’s all about quantity, not quality. This approach forces you to lower your expectations, take risks, and write on the fly.

Many writers have first draft paralysis—just the thought of starting terrifies them and paralyzes their ability or willingness to write.

One of the most valuable lessons I learned early in my writing career is that the first draft is supposed to be “pure green dreck.” The only writers I know of who can write a great first draft are published authors who have written dozens of novels over many years. If you haven’t done that, chances are pretty good—in fact, close to 100%—that your first draft is going to be terrible. But until you have that “pure green dreck” as a starting point, you have nothing to polish into a masterpiece.

I’ve never participated in NaNoWriMo, but I’ve always been an advocate of the writing method used: sit down and write … something. Give yourself permission to write badly. Tell yourself it’s okay if you cringe repeatedly when you re-read what you’ve written. Expect to have to revise, rewrite, and edit over and over again.

Do you know someone—maybe even you—who has been working on the first chapter of a novel for months, even years? They—or you—never finish anything because they—or you—want to produce a finished product. The only way they—or you—will ever produce that finished product, though, is to produce an unfinished product first, then finish it later.

Are you participating in NaNoWriMo this year? Have you done so in the past? What has been your experience in writing a first draft that is “pure green dreck”?

Should Authors be Salespeople? Guest Post by Joel Friedlander

I talk to writers every day who are thinking about publishing their own books. Some have friends who have self-published, so they know it can be done. Or they’ve read the blogs of writers who are doing well in the Kindle store. Or they are just tired of waiting for the agent, the editor, the publisher to get back to them.

Whatever the reason, there’s one objection I hear more than any other from these writers:

“I just want to write, I’m not a salesman.”

And that’s too bad. I think this attitude represents a real misunderstanding on the part of authors. Here’s why.

It’s About Marketing, Not Sales

Think about the difference between marketing and sales.

Marketing means promoting your book to people who are likely to be interested in it. The main activity of marketing is communicating to these likely purchasers.

Sales, on the other hand, is completely different. It’s the process of making transactions, the exchange of money for books, in this example.

You can’t sell a book to someone who’s not interested in it or who doesn’t want to buy it.

Marketing your book, on the other hand, is something similar to what you are probably doing already when you talk about your book to friends, family, or other writers.

You are communicating the passion you have for your subject, your fascination with your characters, your total involvement in the subjects of your writing.

In its simplest form, that’s what marketing is. Going where people who might be interested in your book hang out and communicating with them about the subject of your book.

It’s not asking people to buy your book, and it’s certainly not trying to “sell” them your book.

It’s like when you start blogging. You don’t want to blog about your book, you want to blog about the subject of your book, its themes, lessons, or news, events, or developments that touch on your subject.

Same with marketing your book. If you communicate your feelings for your subject, if you let people know just why you wrote the book and how it can help people, if you show your enthusiasm and expertise in the area, you are doing some pretty powerful book marketing.

And what author doesn’t want to talk about their book or the subject that moved them to write it?

What I suggest to these authors is that they learn to market their books, with everything that implies. If you can do that well enough, and widely enough, and often enough, the sales part of the equation will take care of itself.

So go out and connect with people. Find the places where people are talking about your subject, whatever it is. Participating in those conversations will lead you to interesting places and opportunities to tell even more people about you and what makes you tick. That, in itself, will likely interest people in your books.

Congratulations, you are now a marketer.

Joel Friedlander is the proprietor of Marin Bookworks in San Rafael, California, a publishing services company where he’s helped launch many self-published authors. He blogs about book design, writing and self-publishing at www.TheBookDesigner.com. Joel is also the author of the recently published A Self-Publisher’s Companion: Expert Advice for Authors Who Want to Publish.

Read Lillie’s review of A Self-Publisher’s Companion.

International Freelancers Day is Today

I hope you’re already registered for the free online conference from the International Freelancers Academy, today, International Freelancers  Day.

Check out the presentation schedule and attend the sessions that interest you.

International Freelancers Day September 23, 2011

Added 9/20/11: Registration for this conference closes at midnight Eastern time on Thursday, September 22. If you haven’t registered yet, do it now. Even if you’re interested in only one or two of the sessions, you need to register to attend the ones you want.
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The International Freelancers Academy has declared September 23, 2011 to be International Freelancers Day.

No parades or picnics on this day, but a great opportunity to attend “the biggest ever free online conference exclusively for solo professionals.”

Watch the video below for details, and sign up now if you want to take advantage of this free educational opportunity to advance your freelance business.

International Freelancers Day Conference 2011 from Ed Gandia on Vimeo.

Publishing Ebooks on Smashwords

Most of my readers know I’m a big fan of ebooks. I read on a Kindle, but I believe in making my books and my clients’ books available for a variety of ebook devices. The easiest way to accomplish this is to publish on Smashwords, a platform that allows anyone to publish their work as an ebook for free. Currently I have eight titles available on the Smashwords website and in its Premium Catalog.

• Trapped by Love, a free novelette that has been downloaded more than 5000 times on Smashwords and has five 5-star reviews
• Dream or Destiny, a romantic mystery with a paranormal touch and a theme of domestic violence
• Stroke of Luck, a contemporary romance, five-star rated, featuring a disabled heroine
• Fern’s Fancies, a humorous contemporary romance with four 5-star reviews
• The Secrets of Fantastic Houseplants, an indoor plant care guide based on a small booklet I wrote for customers in my plant shop many years ago
• Finding the Information You Need: Research Tips for Your Family, Business, or Personal Pursuits, a short how-to guide to research, useful for writers as well as individuals and families
• Preserving Memories: How to Write a Family History, tips for writing a family history or memoir to share with family or to publish
• Creating Fictional Characters, my newest offering, based on a series on my blog—at least three of the posts rank among the top 10 in Google for the keywords “creating fictional characters” as well as among my most popular posts

All except Dream of Destiny and Stroke of Luck, which are published by a small press, are self-published and available only as ebooks through Smashwords. All my self-published ebooks sell for $1.99. In addition to my own books, my associate and I have published a dozen ebooks on Smashwords for clients, so I’ve been through the process enough to share a few words of advice.

The magic of Smashwords is the Meatgrinder, the system that takes a Word document and converts it to a variety of ebook formats for sale on Smashwords and other retailers across the Internet. Books in the Premium Catalog are distributed to Barnes & Noble, Sony, Kobo, Apple, Diesel, and Scrollmotion and will be distributed to Amazon when the two companies complete technical integration. While authors can upload ebooks directly to most of these stores, letting the Meatgrinder do the conversions and Smashwords do the distribution saves a lot of time and frustration.

Preparing a manuscript for Smashwords takes some time and occasionally causes some frustration, but when it does, the simple solution is to follow the Smashwords Style Guide. Mark Coker, Smashwords’ founder, has spelled out in detail exactly how to prepare your Word document (be sure to use .doc, not .docx) to make the AutoVetter (the technology that Smashwords uses to check your manuscript for formatting errors) happy. In my experience, when a file has been rejected by the AutoVetter, the reason is failing to follow the Style Guide exactly.

You don’t have to learn from your own mistakes when it comes to Smashwords. I’ll share my mistakes with you so you can learn from them. The following tips suggest things to do and not do—for details see the Style Guide.

• Do remove all formatting—even the hidden formatting you don’t know is there. Mark explains how to find and remove the formatting and how to normalize your text. When the Style Guide says to remove all formatting, believe it. Don’t think you can get by using that fancy font that you love so much. Stick with Times New Roman, Garamond, or Arial.
• Don’t mix a lot of different styles. Start with everything in Normal paragraph style, then add the variations you need for headers and font attributes such as bold and italics, but keep styles to a minimum. Elaborate formatting doesn’t translate well to most ebook formats.
• Don’t use tabs, paragraph returns to create blank lines between paragraphs, tables, columns, or text boxes. Instead use paragraph indents and set the “space after” to 6 point in your Normal paragraph style; convert tables, columns, and text boxes to plain text.
• Don’t use Word’s AutoCorrect, AutoFormat, or automatic table of contents creator. All of these features are apt to put garbage into your ebook. You may think it takes a little longer to create the table of contents manually, but, believe me, if you corrupt your file with an automatic table of contents, you’ll wish you had spent a little extra time initially.
• One simple rule for success: Do follow the instructions in the Style Guide. Mark Coker has provided step-by-step instructions that work if you follow them exactly. And if you still get AutoVetter errors after following the instructions, fall back on the “nuclear option” and paste your text into Notepad to remove whatever hidden formatting or corruption is causing the problem. Then start over following the Style Guide instructions.

Anyone can publish anything on Smashwords. As an editor, I have one piece of advice that isn’t a “how-to” but a “what-to.” Ensure that your book is ready for publication before you start formatting. Hire a professional editor or find a knowledgeable friend who can edit your book for you. Smashwords will produce a lovely ebook in nearly a dozen formats. Make sure the quality of the content is commensurate with the quality of the formatting.

Guest Post from Randall Davidson: Ten Proofreading Tips You Cannot Afford to Ignore

No matter how skilled of a writer you are, it is easy to submit work that is filled with errors. Even the best writers often miss the mark when it comes to proofreading. However, correcting errors in your work can give you the edge over the competition, making the following 10 proofreading tips of the utmost importance:

1. Use fresh eyes. Proofreading after a break from writing can help you see your work with fresh eyes and catch things that need to be fixed. Try proofreading all the work completed in one day the next morning. If time is of the essence, read something else before returning to your own composition.
2. Know your weaknesses. Most writers have errors that frequently pop up in their work. Keep a list of the common errors that you are prone to and check specifically for those items when proofreading.
3. Watch for little things. Small words that are misspelled or misused are commonly missed when proofreading. For example, keep a close eye on words like “it” and “is.”
4. Know the style. Different publications and editors adhere to different style guides. Decide which style you prefer and adjust your writing to meet those guidelines. AP style, for example, may support different punctuation and grammar preferences than the Chicago Manual of Style.
5. Vocalize your work. Read your piece out loud to yourself. Hearing your writing vocalized can help you access different areas of your brain than writing and reading, making it easier to pick up on the mistakes.
6. Find a friend. A fresh set of eyes is often one of the best ways to ensure error-free writing. Have someone read the work and point out the errors that they notice. A new reader may also be able to offer new proofreading tips.
7. Split the tasks. There are numerous types of errors that can be present in your writing. Focus separately on each type of mistake. Use one read-through to look for spelling issues and a separate proofreading session for things like grammar and style mistakes.
8. Change it up. Reading the text in a way that is not intended can make errors more obvious. For example, read your work from bottom to top or from right to left. This separates each word from the larger context and makes it easier to spot errors.
9. Watch the lighting. Subtle nuances can impact your success at finding and correcting errors. For example, fluorescent lights make it harder to see small mistakes in your work. It is better to proofread under natural lighting.
10. Check the obvious. Don’t assume that you are infallible to mistakes in any particular area. Overconfidence can hurt your finished product. Double-check headings and boilerplate text, and regularly review grammar rules that you are unsure about.

Using these proofreading tips can improve your writing and help you accomplish your goals as an author.

About the author: Randall Davidson is a cofounder of ProofreadingServices.Us, a proofreading service that offers book proofreading. Randall enjoys discussing proofreading and editing tips and best practices with other writers.

Are You an Editing Geek or a Word Nerd?

A while back someone sent me an email suggesting I share a blog post with my readers: Word Nerds Rejoice: Top 25 Blogs For Editing Geeks. I reviewed the list and even subscribed to several of the blogs. Some of the listed blogs deal in editing minutiae, but there are several funny ones as well.

I love words, and I love editing words to make the stories or advice or information a pleasure to read. One editor described me as “the pickiest person I know!” I am a fanatic about misspelled or misused words, awkward and convoluted verbiage, and grammar errors that interfere with readers’ enjoyment or understanding. However, I don’t believe in being a slave to rules. Looking over this list of editing blogs made me think of a post I wrote in November 2006. Since most of you weren’t reading my blog back then (actually, I don’t think anyone was reading my blog then!), I decided to share it again.

Rules or Artistic License?

I’ve been following a discussion on a writers e-mail list. Must writers follow all the rules of grammar, spelling, and punctuation, or do the rules stifle the writer’s creativity?

Some writers consider themselves artists who can’t be restricted by rules, while others consider themselves craftsmen bound by conventions.

I fall in the middle—as noted in a previous post, a publisher has called me ”the pickiest person she knows.” As an editor, I have to know and follow grammar rules or I wouldn’t have any customers. On the other hand, my writing style is informal and simple, and I usually don’t worry about all the rules that may be used in formal writing. For example, I don’t mind ending a sentence with preposition. Often it sounds more natural and understandable to do so.

In my view, there are several critical elements to good writing:

• The reader must understand it. Using the right word is essential. Using it’s when you mean its or using their or they’re when you mean there can confuse your meaning. Punctuation to show when sentences start and end is critical. Writers must follow some rules to ensure that their readers know what the writer is saying.
• The writing must be consistent. Some style guides call for serial commas (the comma before “and” in a series of three or more: bell, book, and candle). Other style guides say to leave out the last comma if the meaning is clear (bell, book and candle). If you’re writing an academic paper or a newspaper article, you need to follow the appropriate style guide. But if you’re writing a blog entry or an article for your Web site, you can take your choice of using or not serial commas. But whichever you choose, do it throughout the document. Writing “bell, book, and candle” in the first paragraph and “boys, girls and parents” in the second paragraph won’t work.
• The style of the writing must be appropriate to the subject and the situation. I’ve been editing an academic paper for a doctoral student—that paper is more formal and uses more “big” words than I use in my blog posts. An academic paper should demonstrate that the student has the vocabulary and the formal writing skill appropriate to the level of education. Depending on the purpose of the blog, posts should generally convey the message in a way that is easy and enjoyable for the reader.
• Dialogue should reflect the education and personality of the character speaking. An uneducated laborer shouldn’t sound like a college professor. But even if dialogue contains improper grammar, it should be punctuated correctly so it is easy for the reader to understand what is being said. And if a character speaks in a dialect, just enough of the dialectal spelling should be used to convey the impression without making it difficult for the reader to decipher what the character is saying.

Understanding the rules and knowing when you can break them is one of the hallmarks of a good writer.

Of course, since even good writers (and editors) are human, sometimes we all break the rules without intending to. Most editors say we can find everyone’s errors but our own. So if you see me breaking the rules … maybe I did it on purpose, and maybe I just goofed!

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