Under the Radar

Ive noticed in my reading that some literary agents want a book proposal in which you describe things like how you plan to promote your book. One even suggested starting in advance to the finished manuscript. Websites, interviews, even TV appearances. They suggest going to writing conferences and online social networks. One or two of them suggested including a website or blog address on the query letter. The agent then goes out and looks at how many comments you get to your posts.

It looks like I'm a bit behind on my promotional work. The other thing that interests me is the previous experience garnered throughout one's writing experience. I have none. I've never written a short story or entered a contest, so I'll be leaving that blank. I encourage everyone who thinks they may want to write a book, to start at a young age so they have time to incorporate this in their time spent away from work. Well, live and learn. It's an interesting road we travel as writiers.

Formatting Woes

We, my husband and I, went out and bought some paper. I figure, I'll be printing my MP (masterpiece) at least three times. Once for my husband to read and mark up, once to get it proofed by my computer illiterate teacher friend to mark up, and again for a contest I'm going to enter it in.

At the moment, I'm in the process of formatting it in Microsoft Word for printing. If any of you have used that program, you know how dang stubborn it can be. I'd turn the formatting off, except Its benefits far outweigh its frustrating ticks. But once I get it there and leave it alone, I shouldn't have to touch it again.

Wrong. When all those marked up copies come back, I'll have to go in and tinker with it, which will surely shift everything.

That's for the hard copies. Some submission rules for online submissions are quite specific about formatting or in some cases, no formatting, no tabs, and no space bar spacing for paragraph beginnings, yet they want the beginning of the paragraphs indented.

So I'm asking you, what have some of you done to achieve some of the strict submission rules? Let me know what your experiences are. I want to learn from your mistakes. Ain't I sweet.

Amazing Talent

I'm easily impressed, I have to say, but the video this link goes to is simply amazing. For some reason they aren't sharing this video, but here's the link.

47 Year old Susan Boyle wows the judges with her performance in the auditions for Britains Got Talent, singing I dreamed a dream from Les Miserables.

Demi Moore: 'Britain's Got Talent's Susan Boyle moved me to tears'

by the seat of my pants

I want to outline in the worse way. I love to outline. Outlines look so cool, and with a word processors, it’s so easy. Best of all, it’s one of the best ways to procrastinate that I know, especially if you are me, because I know I’ll never finish one.

I’ve tried writing software. New Novelist, It’s a good program. I got it off EBay. I used it for about a week, then forgot about it.

The Cadillac of writing software; in my humble opinion, is
yWriter4. It’s got some neat bells and whistles. A story board, an outline feature, a rating chart, a daily word count target dowidget, individual chapter features, a word usage counter, a view point tracker, and more. Best of all, it is absolutely free. Check it out at the above link, the website is quite interesting as well.

Here’s what I always fall back on. It's rustic and home spun. Good old Microsoft Excel worksheet. I got the idea from Randy Ingermanson. If you haven’t read about his Snowflake Method, here’s the website, Snowflake Method. Even so, it’s still a post-outline, but with my lack of consistency, or until I get my undiagnosed ADD under control, that's long for early onset dementia, it’s the best I’m going to be able to do. It’s called seat of the pants writing.

I have bragging rights

I did some powerful writing today. If I can write fiction that stirs my emotions, perhaps it will stir reader’s emotions as well. In fact I had to stop writing because my blood pressure was rising and I couldn’t take the suspense. Well then, I’m patting myself on the back. But I must be humble. The reader still has to wade through the rest of the book, invest in my protagonists and hate the antagonists to get to this, amazing piece of work.

Allow me a little brag. If you don’t love what you do and do it as well as you can, then why do it? If for no other reason than to please you I think.

Elizabeth