Today's Writing Tip Is on Slang

Sometimes we're not sure how to spell slang words. Is it gonna and wanna, goo’ night, yer mother, and hook up? What about profanity? God damn right or goddamn right? Can you spell the word boys as boyz if you want to give it a hip-hop feel? Should we just guess and standardize our diction using a style sheet? Urban dictionary to the rescue!

There are a number of excellent slang dictionaries online that tell us the proper way to spell phat (no, I'm not talking about that feeling of despair when you stand on the scale), innit (British), and other words that may not appear in traditional dictionaries. And like Merriam-Webster, dictionary.com, or Collins Gage, these dictionaries are individualized for the US, Canada, and the UK.

Actually, it can be fun to just browse these dictionaries to find new words, but they're also very useful to have in our toolkit when we come up against slang or swear words that we know how to say but we're not completely sure how to spell.

Sigrid Macdonald is an editor and the author of three books. Her last book, Be Your Own Editor, is available on Amazon: http://tinyurl.com/c3az54r and you can read more about her editing services at http://sigridmacdonald.blogspot.com/  

Today's Writing Tip Is: Do Authors Need a Social Media Presence?

Whether a writer self-publishes or publishes through a traditional company, much of the marketing nowadays falls on the writer's shoulders. For years publicists and advertising specialists have encouraged authors to develop a strong social media presence: Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, LinkedIn, and now Instagram have been recommended as essential tools for writers to promote their material. But are these avenues essential? More importantly, are they effective and lucrative? It depends.

Personally, I have spent hundreds if not thousands of hours on Facebook and Twitter. Out of the 10,000 books I've sold, I probably sold about 30 through Facebook and I've received two or three clients at most for my editing services on LinkedIn and Twitter combined. I have also paid hundreds of dollars to consultants to optimize my Facebook page, to no avail in terms of selling books. I have, however, reconnected with numerous precious people from high school and college, so I would never say Facebook has been a complete waste. But it has not been effective for me in terms of book sales. Ditto for most of the dozens of authors I know.

Because I'm a scientist at heart, I know that my friends and I are just anecdotal evidence. Our experiences don't constitute proof that social media is irrelevant for authors, but if you want to devote hours to Facebook for the sole purpose of selling books, make sure to create a fan page for yourself and update it regularly, preferably every day. The fan page has to be separate from your regular page and you should attempt to build a wide base there. Post excerpts from your book, your book cover, info about book signings, and hold contests. Give away free electronic copies of your book and occasionally a print copy. Consider paying Facebook for advertising. And make yourself accessible. The worst thing to do is to create a fan page and then disappear and only update once a month. No one will read it in that case.

Twitter and LinkedIn are different stories. LinkedIn is much more business oriented and good for connections, but Twitter moves fast. If you follow other authors in your genre, they are likely to follow you back but will not necessarily buy your books. Set aside a certain amount of time per week for promoting your book on these venues – but by all means don't be aggressive. There is nothing people dislike more than people who ramble and obsess on a newsfeed begging them to buy their books. Then do an inventory after a few months to see if your presence there has made any difference in book sales. If not, reconsider the value of social media for book promotion and just use it for fun.

Sigrid Macdonald is an editor and the author of three books. Her last book, Be Your Own Editor, is available on Amazon: http://tinyurl.com/c3az54r

 

Today's Writing Tip Is on Castles Made of Sand

The other day I was in the car listening to Jimi Hendrix and I nearly drove off the road when I heard him sing, "And so castles made of sand melts into the sea eventually." Okay, we have to give this rock God a major pass for making some of the best music in the world when he was out of his mind on too much acid and writing before the invention of the spellchecker. But can we gently, and with love, deconstruct that sentence and try to determine the origin of Jimi's mistake?

Hendrix probably thought that sand melts and he forgot that the beginning of his sentence, and the direct subject, was castles, not sand. Usually we can tell by the way things sound when our subject and verb are not in agreement, but if you tend to go into your own purple haze, where you might forget what’s supposed to match, keep in mind that several extraneous words or clauses may intervene between your primary subject and your verb. And go back to take the extra time to make sure that your subjects and verbs line up.

Of course, you could always try writing when you're high to increase your creativity, but proofreading when you're stone cold sober!

Sigrid Macdonald is an editor and the author of three books, including Be Your Own Editor, available on Amazon: http://tinyurl.com/c3az54r

 

Today's Writing Tip Is on Efficiency

One way I have found to be efficient in business and my personal life is to take the thing that I want to do least and do it first. Every morning when I get up, I assess what I have to do for work and what I have to do to keep my fabulous recreational life going. And I decide which tasks are fun and easy and which ones are a total bore or difficult. I take the latter and knock them off right away. That means that by 10 a.m. or 11 o'clock, my day is filled with things I want to do because I've already completed the ones I didn't want to do.

This works for writing as well. There are always some things we enjoy more about writing than others. This varies from person to person. Let's say you're writing a novel and you adore writing the action scenes, but you hate fact checking. As soon as you tackle your work, devote a specific period of time to fact checking. It might be twenty minutes or however long you think you can tolerate. Then get back to writing your action scenes. You'll feel so much better knowing that the task you dreaded is already out of the way.

Sigrid Macdonald is an editor and the author of three books. Her last book, Be Your Own Editor, is available on Amazon: http://tinyurl.com/c3az54r

 

Make a Living As a Virtual Writer

By Lisa Ramsay

Being a writer is something thousands of people aspire to be. However, there will only ever be a handful of authors whose work is remembered in the decades and centuries to come. The rest of us can accept that while we’ll never be Jane Austen or Dan Brown, it is possible to make a living as a writer. Most aspiring writers who want to put pen to paper, or fingertip to MacBook, do it because they love their craft. It’s this passion for writing which means that many writers work for free, or for a very low wage; but it is possible to make a living from doing what you love. Although the romanticism of writing a novel in longhand might belong to the previous century, the digital age means there’s now more outlets than ever before for wannabe writers.

Traditional media

Trained journalists can write for local and national newspapers, magazines, and media websites. Specialist reporters may write about the arts, culture, sport or business. There are also a huge variety of trade journals which provide news to different industries, such as farming or pharmaceuticals. These are called B2B (business to business) titles. The huge variety of printed and online established media means that there’s plenty of opportunity for writers. Most journalists who work for publications such as these are trained reporters, however there are opportunities for writers who are not specifically trained in journalism to get their work published.

Many local newspapers have leisure, sports, and business sections, either in print, online, or both. To start writing for a local audience, why not get in touch with a title to see if they need any help writing features? If you have a specialist subject, such as farming, flower arranging or pet care, then you could write about this, either as a one-off article or as a regular column. You may not get paid much (or not at all) but if the editor knows that he or she can rely upon you to write good quality material to deadline, then you might be the first person they call when a paid opportunity comes up.

Get paid for writing at home

There are more websites than ever before, and the number is growing by the day. Site owners don’t want empty pages so there are lots of opportunities to write online content. Most online writing includes knowledge of SEO – search engine optimization – and there are lots of online courses and tutorials to help you learn the basics about the importance of key words. The Internet is vast, and so the topics you could write about are endless: from business and finance, to arts and holidays. Unlike printed media, there is a greater opportunity to be paid when it comes to writing online content. Website owners want good quality content which attracts readers to their pages, but they often won’t have the time to source this themselves. This means that online content writing agencies have become an easy way to match writers with websites which need content. By writing for wait.co.uk you will have the opportunity to have your work read by thousands of people across the world. It’s a great way to start getting paid for writing. You can even write in the comfort of your own home, at any time of the day you want, so whether you’re an early bird or a night owl you’ll find work to suit you.

Join the writing community

For most people it is a dream to work from home, but some also worry that it will be lonely. Fortunately writers are all in the same situation – and they’re good at expressing themselves! This means there is a lively online community of writers and those interested in writing, all typically sitting at home but connecting with each other online. Twitter is a great place to ‘meet’ other writers, as many well-established and novice authors and journalists have their own accounts. It can be a useful resource for writers who feel they need some moral support, and can also offer practical advice. Accounts such as @writingupdate can offer tips and news about the wider writing community, keeping you in the loop.

Take the first step

Whatever you decide to write, just make sure you fill that blank page. Whether you start by writing your own blog, online content, or features, there is something out there for everyone. The most important thing is to enjoy the process – as that is what writing is all about. 

 

Today's Writing Tip – Close Your Clauses

Often in haste, or without realizing that we need to do so, writers will begin to separate a segment of a sentence and then forget to close it off.

Here's an example – "My brother is bringing his fiancée, Diane to Thanksgiving dinner." What's wrong with that sentence? Diane is my brother's one and only fiancée – one would hope. We start out by separating her first name by a comma, but then we don't add the remaining comma which would complete the sentence.

How should we write it? "My brother is bringing his fiancée, Diane, to Thanksgiving dinner." The way you can tell that the latter is right is that you can eliminate Diane altogether from that sentence and it will still make sense. "My brother is bringing his fiancée to Thanksgiving dinner."

Of course, Thanksgiving wouldn't be the same without Diane so we are not eliminating her invitation!

Sigrid Macdonald is an editor and the author of five books including How to Be Your Own Editor, available on Amazon: http://tinyurl.com/qdlt9ca

 

 

 

 

Tips for Writers Honing Their Skills Later in Life

Tips for Writers Honing Their Skills Later in Life

 by Lisa Ramsay

We are often in awe of writers who find success when they are very young: after all, there’s something impressive about reaching the top of your game and finding literary success in your 20s, especially if this is achieved without support. We can all reel off a long list of award winning young things, but it’s much harder to list those writers who came to the art and found success later in life. However, there are many, and some of those might come as a surprise. There are many reasons writers choose to come to writing later in life: redundancy, empty nest, even overcoming a lifelong addiction of some kind. 

Famous Late Bloomers

Donald Ray Pollock, author of 2011’s award winning novel The Devil All the Time, was the ripe age of 55 when this, his debut novel, garnered success. Pollock actually dropped out of school at the age of 17, and went to work in a meatpacking plant. He then worked at a paper mill for 32 years and it was only then he began his education, enrolling in Ohio University’s MFA program. He published a set of short stories the year before he graduated, when he was 55, and his award winning debut quickly followed. A similar tale is that of the more famous Raymond Chandler. Chandler didn’t decide to become a writer until he lost his job as an oil company executive when he was 44 years old. He published his first short story in 1933 and The Big Sleep, his most successful and debut novel, was published in 1939.

Another writer choosing to come to the craft later in life is Deborah Eisenberg, who decided to start writing whilst quitting her three packs a day smoking habit by going cold turkey. She went on to become one of the most amazing living short story writers when her first collection was published at the age of 41, and all because she had an addiction she wanted to quit! Writing is a great way to overcome an addiction, whether that be to cigarettes or alcohol, an illegal substance, an eating disorder, or all the above. When you are struggling with an addiction, you tend to be withdrawn and to focus inwards; however, writing forces you to focus your energy on looking outwards and to channel your emotions in a positive way. If you have a dual-diagnosis of eating disorder and addiction, then it's likely that you will have a multitude of difficult physical and emotional problems to process in order to begin healing, and start your recovery process: perhaps even more so than someone facing just one addiction to overcome.  Dealing with difficult emotions is a great, and very common, reason that people choose to begin writing. It is a positive and productive way to deal with any hard or confusing times in your life.

Top Tips for New Writers

If you are, for whatever reason, thinking of coming to writing later in life, then here are some tips for taking up the craft and honing your skills as a serious writer:

Try Not to Procrastinate

Procrastination is part of the human condition. When you decide you want to write, you’ll suddenly find yourself fascinated with the temperature of your coffee, the color of your pen; anything to avoid actually poring yourself onto that piece of paper. Mary Heaton Vorse famously said that “The art of writing is the art of applying the seat of the pants to the seat of the chair.” And it’s true that if you want to write, the most important thing you can do is sit down and start writing, even if you have to edit out most of what you have written at the end of every day!

Read a Lot

Having told you not to procrastinate, I will now provide this next tip, which will seem odd: sit down and enjoy a good book. One that wasn’t written by you! Read everything you can get your hands on, and read as many different genres of literature as you can too. You can’t write well without reading: the two skills go hand in hand. Perhaps this is why writers who come to writing later in life find success so quickly: they are well read, they know what they like to read, and this makes writing a successful novel decisively a little easier.

Be Honest

If you’ve lived a long and varied life, and seen a lot of things you never expected to see, then why not incorporate this and embellish it in your writing? People love to sense honesty when they are reading: by writing about what you know, you can make the story you are trying to tell seem more real. And say the things that people think but that no one ever actually says. You’ll soon find that you have a novel that everyone will want to read!