Writers Resources

Productivity Recipe and Boredom Blast

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When inspiration runs dry and you get a case of the blues, whether writer’s block is operating on the background or frustration knocks at your door, productivity suffers and boredom settles in – life’s loses its luster, gray days abound, and opaque hours seem to stop time.  This may happen to anyone, at any time; I have been there.  I want to share with you a simple system I came up with that will help you fight those blues and keep you from becoming bored or uninspired.  I assure you that you will always have something to dream about, something to be grateful for, and something to do.  That in itself can jumpstart your inspiration.  I call this system my Inspirational Jars, and that is just what it is.  I use three empty glass jars and I label each one – Love Notes, Pick a Chore, and Promise Jar.  Each Jar has a purpose; each jar gives me something to do.

  • PICK A CHORE – I fill this jar with all kinds of single chores written in small cards (make them colorful for fun and visual impact).  I write as many things that come to mind that I have to do, whether soon or in a near future.
  • LOVE NOTES – In this jar, I write the things that I would like to do for others (in small cards so they fit in the jar), whether it is to make a gift, visit someone, call someone, invite someone to dine, wash my husband’s truck … It is all about giving and Love.
  • PROMISE JAR – This jar is very important to me because it contains many dreams and things that I want or love to do.  Things that are in a distant future or things that I can do right away.  It doesn’t matter how big the dream is; it goes inside that jar.

The idea is to sit down and write as many small cards you can and fill those bottles, and if one day you think of something else, just write it and deposit it in the bottle.  If you ever feel bored, uninspired, and not knowing what to do, pick one card from one of the bottles and do/dream/plan/execute whatever you wrote on that card.  If it is something you cannot do now, you can always put it back and pick a card from another bottle or from the same jar, or you can sit down and dream/plan how to work towards that dream or goal.  You will never ran out of things to do if you keep filling those inspirational jars.  Make them pretty, colorful and enticing.  Have fun creating this system.  Create your own system depending on what you want to do.  For example, a jar for blogging topics, a jar for writing scenes or character names … Mine are just what I use to keep productivity and inspiration alive.  Here is what my Inspirational Jars look like.

 

Inspirational Jars

I hope that you enjoyed this tip.

Awesome Blogs that I am Loving Right Now!

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From time to time, I like to share a post about some blogs that I am enjoying and recently have gotten to visit more often.  Topics range because I like a variety of content. Here are five favorites that I have enjoyed reading more recently.

  1. http://simpletombornhigh.com/ – I am enjoying this blog very much. Simple Tom brings something new every day, and he lives with zest and passion. You will certainly enjoy his joyful style, which is contagious 🙂
  2. http://gallivance.net/ – I enjoy this blog because it brings you a lot of visual impact with beautiful pictures of their travels, but the information is brought in a very real way, personal and entertaining.
  3. http://sheslosingit.net/ This blog is very informative and inspirational, if you are trying to get fit and live a better life.  The information is brought to you in a fun and real way, and you get to experience the blogger’s journey too.
  4. http://oldworldgardenfarms.com/ If  you visit my blog, you know about my love for farming and my intentions to move to a rural setting and start doing just that.  I love this blog and it has tons of how to do projects, and will certainly be very helpful in the near future.
  5. http://michelleproulx.wordpress.com/ I love the blog of this young writer. It is full of punch and energy, as well as videos and pictures of some of the most interesting moments of her journey. She always makes the topic fun and to the point.  You will enjoy it very much.

There are many more new blogs (for me) that I am enjoying, and some awesome blogs that I have read for some time. Maybe I will share those oldies on another post.  I hope that you get to visit these and enjoy them as well.

How to Stay Balanced When You are Upside Down

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A triangular prism, dispersing light; waves sh...

A triangular prism, dispersing light; waves shown to illustrate the differing wavelengths of light. (Click to view animation) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Today, I didn’t want to write about my novel or a writing topic, but instead, I wanted to write about what I was inspired at the moment.  So I asked my Muse, what do you want me to write about today? The title you just read came to mind, so that is what I am writing about this instant.

As someone who has known what this means, I can tell you that it is not easy to hang in there when everything has flipped upside down at one point in your life.  When your world hangs the opposite to your focus, it is easy to be discouraged, throw the towel, and just hang for eternity.  I think that hanging a bit is fine because you need to rest to fix your focus.  You need to rest emotionally, physically, and spiritually, as well as in the material state.  So give yourself time to just be, and let your broken spirit rest.

Once you have rested and pondered on your misery, the moment to make a decision knocks at the door of your heart, and you know that this is the time when you decide to pick yourself up and fix your focus, or maintain a state of hanging, sinking slowly into a deep hole.  Whether the contents of that hole is depression, sadness, anger, hopelessness, inertia, hate, laziness … and many other things, it is different to each individual.  However, when you are hanging upside down, after the rest, you will hear that knock, and you will have to answer.  Whether you start pulling at that rope, lifting yourself up slowly, and appreciating how the image comes back to focus bit by bit, or let the rope go, it is up to you.  One thing is for sure, you need to balance yourself to be able to pull that rope and getting yourself back up.  How is it possible to balance yourself when everything around you seems to be spinning out of control and you hang but by a leg?  It is not easy, but it is possible.  This happens when you rest and give yourself time to focus.

  • First, you need to recognize that you need help – whether from a professional or a best friend, and of course yourself.  Whether you can do this on your own, or need help is personal.
  • Second, you need to recognize that there are no blames in this process.  I truly believe that we are responsible for our own choices, and no one is to blame.
  • Third, you think about what you believe as truth in your life and make a commitment to yourself.
  • Fourth, you learn to view the world upside down for a while, and ponder about it.  What you discover about it may surprise you.
  • Fifth, you learn what your priorities are, and decide to make them your priority or not – knowing that there will be consequences to your decision (positive or negative).
  • Sixth, you accept to deal with those consequences understanding the process.
  • Seventh, you do this slowly, one step at a time.
  • Eight, you remain true to your beliefs and priorities when you start to fix your focus.
  • Ninth, you will discover that some things from your old upside down world, do not go into focus no matter how hard you try, so you will have to let those go, otherwise you will stay out of focus in some areas.  In this process, you will learn to say no.  You will learn that you will have to accept that you cannot please everyone. You will also learn to weigh which opinions matter more to you – others or yours.
  • Tenth, you must accept that no one can live your life but you, and that you cannot live your life according to other’s ideas of what your world should look like.  You have been given a responsibility to manage your life (a gift) and live it as well as you can; however your truths and priorities will guide you here.
  • Eleventh, this is when you start feeling that the image in front of you is just an image, and what matters is how you feel about it and how you live your life in this quasi upside down world.  You make it as straight as you want, and you do it one step at a time, balancing yourself in the process – checking from time to time your beliefs, truths, and priorities.
  • Twelfth, the realization that you are always in control hits you, and suddenly, even that you might be still pulling yourself up as you pull on the rope slowly, trying to straighten your world and fix your focus, you can see that the view upside down and in between is as ugly or beautiful as you make it to be, and that there is always a prism changing colors.

This is what I had to write today.

 

Les Miserables and Your Novel

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Six degrees of separation.

Six degrees of separation. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Miserable – Very unhappy; wretched – causing distress or discomfort – wretchedly poor. American Heritage Dictionary

 

For the purpose of this post, lets define “Les miserables” as the person(s) who showers in negativity, gets fueled by it, and is incapable of celebrating other’s good news. Now that we have defined the phrase to suit this post, I will tell you why I decided to write it.  No, the reason is not to vent (well, maybe a little), but to help other artists/writers who might be experiencing (being the target) a dose of it.

I will illustrate with an example of a recent encounter with the type.  If you are an artist/writer/creative you know how sensitive and attached to your work you are – it is inevitable and it comes with the territory.  At one point, you may become your art form, and it may become the air you breathe, your sustenance, your all.  In your excitement, you may want to share the good news, and if you are a writer, maybe even give a signed and dedicated copy of your novel to someone.  Now, that was a nice gesture, wasn’t it?

If the person falls into the les miserables category, be prepared for what will follow – a complete mockery of your gesture, a lack of respect for your art form, a complete disregard of your efforts, therefore ignoring the good news, and even the blunt admission of not intending to read it, followed by the “what’s about, I bet you it is about monsters, haunted houses … and other thoughtless les miserables remarks.” And by now, you must be wondering, and the answer is yes – it happened to me.  In this case, le miserable was not at stranger, and with not many degrees of separation.

Well, and how do you handle such les miserables?  Simply by taking the higher road. This is how to do it.

  • You refrain yourself from chopping any heads, from uttering any #*&^%# words, and proceed to breath deeply.
  • You answer any mocking questions with the professionalism of the author you are – because that is the road you have chosen.
  • You stick to the content of your book, and do not give the story away.  If the person wants to know, then let them go through the trouble of reading; after all, you just gave a signed and dedicated copy to him/her.
  •  Although you  realize that you have “slightly” been disrespected as a creative, and cannot understand why you still have that “deer hit by foglights look” on your face, you manage to politely smile, and charmingly add this sentence – “It was a lot of work, and I am so proud of myself.”
  • Next, you have to admit something to yourself, and I think this is the hardest part, and that is – “Not everyone will be happy about your good news.”
  • Once you admit that and understand that we as humans, are diversely motivated, it will be easy to let it go, and it won’t hurt your creative self as much.
  • Next, you make a mental note – “this person does not get a free copy of any of your future novels.”
  • Followed by, maybe you should consider how often you want to experience negativity and bad vibes, and decide to insert a few degrees of separation between you and that person, so the negativity and “put down” attitude does not affect your creative self.  This is not about holding grudges, this is about understanding that many times, it is better to surround yourself with more uplifting people, and leave les miserables to themselves.  If these are ties that cannot be severed completely (as in family/in laws…), then insert as many degrees of separation as you need to maintain the peace without hurting your creative self.
  • Then, let it out, share your story with one true friend who is uplifting, without engaging in character-bashing, but just exercising a natural gesture of sharing a bad experience.
  • Next, understand that this will not be the only time you will encounter les miserables in your journey.
  • And finally, let it go and don’t make more of it than what it is – no need to hold onto the negative experience – release it, and get ready to keep creating and making your next piece.

Hope that this post helps any of you that might be experiencing a dose of not requested les miserables attitude.  Keep strong, uplift your creative self, and keep creating.  🙂

Welcome Your Muse

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Hesiod and the Muse

Hesiod and the Muse (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

For some reason, the Muse have visited frequently these couple of months.  She has knocked at the door of my mind and dreams.  What happens when your Muse shows up?  Do you ignore her/him or honor her request?  I chose to pay attention.  Let me give you and example of how she made her appearance and what I did at the moment.

Last week, I was at the parking lot of a local WAWA with my husband.  We got coffee and were ready to go on the road.  We were talking and observing the people going in and out, just casual conversation.  My husband said something, and that triggered a rainstorm of images in my mind.  It was a complete story, and I liked it.  I said to my husband, “Wait, let me write something down really quick.”  I took a small notebook and pen that I keep in the car and wrote about all the images as best I could.  He knew what I was doing so he kept quiet until I finished, enjoying his coffee.  In a few minutes, I was done writing, and we proceeded with our conversation.  Once I got home, in the afternoon, I took out my notes and I typed a more detailed version of the images.  The reason for this is that I need as much detail as possible, since that story will be filed until I am able to work on it, since I still have to finish writing book 2 and 3 of The Dinorah Chronicles.  This is an example of how the Muse visited quickly and how I listened to her.  I could have ignored the story, and kept doing what I was doing, hoping that I would remember all the details later, but with me it doesn’t happen that way; I would have forgotten.

That same week, I had a very fast dream. Once awaken, I remembered it, and realized it was the beginning of a story that I liked, a different story, and unrelated to anything that I was working on at the time or other ideas.  Immediately, I wrote it down, as I realized that the Muse had visited once more.  This is how I acknowledge the Muse.  I dream a lot; however, not every dream is necessary something that I would like to write.  Recognizing the Muse’s visit is a way of acknowledging her gift.

As writers, we may get ideas 24/7, and usually these come out of the sudden.  This is why it is important to have a small notepad/pen nearby.  I keep one in my bag, at my bedside, and in the car.  Just for when the Muse shows up.

How do you acknowledge your Muse?

On Writing Critters, Demons, and Other Beings

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The purpose of this post is to highlight the importance of consulting  your earlier outlines or notes when writing a second novel that refers to characters of a previous novel.

When I wrote The Dinorah Chronicles – Ramblings of the Spirit, I did not consult my earlier notes for Moonlit Valley, for most of it.  While reviewing Ramblings of the Spirit, I noticed that I had misspelled the name of one of the creatures, and have done it through the entire novel.  I wasn’t sure, so I consulted my notes from the first book.  This was more than a typo.  I was right, I had switched a k for a j, calling the supernatural entity a Murksling instead of a Murkslink, and in a deeper level, altering the character’s essence/meaning (murk-slink).  Although it wouldn’t probably affect or alter the story, readers notice these things, and many of them know their critters and supernatural beings by heart, if they are reading your books.  Not realizing that mistake on time to make the correction, would have been misinterpreted as carelessness or lack of respect towards the world that a writer has created.  In a way, it is a letdown to the reader.  This is why it is so important to keep earlier notes and outlines at hand, when out of the ordinary beings are created and named.  It is helpful as well, to keep track of important details if you are writing a series.

I keep all my notes and very short outlines in the computer, so it is easy to refer to them, as necessary.  However, I was relying on my memory and trusting that I would remember every detail.  Not the case.  If you don’t like to keep your notes in the PC, a small box of index cards for each novel, divided by chapter, is a good idea.  In each chapter card, include meaningful information such as dates, ages, descriptions, places, and names of characters, and any other pertinent details for future series.  In addition, you may buy software that can help you organize your novel files.  I like to keep it simple because I don’t want to create a project out of an outline of a novel.

So this is my bit of wisdom for today – keep your critters, demons, and supernatural beings at hand, so you don’t end up dissapointing your readers.

Moo Your Novel

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I have thought about ways to spread the cheer about Moonlit Valley, my first novel (you may visit the Novels tab on this blog for more information on the book).  I thought about Moo mini cards, and found this to be a great idea.  Today, I ordered a few.  They are very affordable.  It is an awesome way to promote your business as well as your books.  For me, I ended up doing a combo business and book promo mini card.

Moo mini cards are half the size of a traditional business card, and you can print on both sides or download your images.  In my case, I downloaded images of my business logo and images of my book.  The best about it is that you can have up to 100 different images in the back of the card (in one order).  The front will be your business or book info, and you can choose for the back one or as many images you want, up to 100.  If you have many novels, you can use part of the cover to place in the back of the card.  Each time you hand out a card, a different image (or message if you choose) will be on the back.  You can also do all of them with one image only, if you desire.  I love the opportunity to be able to do many things with these mini cards.  You can also create text cards, and for example, use lines from your book.  There are many possibilities, depending on how creative you want to be.  I can’t wait to get mine.

In addition, I discovered that Moo has a new service called an NFC card.  This is as awesome as it can get.  Techies will love it for sure.  These are business cards that have a small chip inside and when you hand it to someone the person can touch it to a smart phone, the card will send a message that has been pre-programmed by you, and the phone will execute it.  For example this could be download music, or your portfolio, or pics, or a link to your website …  Imagine directing customers to your book link via your business card; isn’t that awesome?

Well, for now, I will be happy to get my glossy moo cards with all the images selections that I created.  As soon as I get them in the mail, I will post some pics so you can see how beautiful and smart these mini cards are.

Check it out if you think this is a good idea – http://www.moo.com/share/qg6j89

Smashing my Words and Other Vicissitudes

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I decided to offer Moonlit Valley via Smashwords because it offers a wide distribution option for electronic books.  In a way, it was like killing many birds with one stone (ouch).  It offers the ePub format (nook, apple,kobo…) and others like the Sony reader, Palm, pdf, rtf, and of course plain text, as well as library lending.  This seems the perfect all-in-one, one-stop-shopping deal.  For someone like me, who gets easily overwhelmed by too many sites to keep track of, and too many profiles, joining Smashwords was a plus.  There is only one thing I did not like – the look of the end product of an electronic book.  Unlike Amazon Kindle, it is a bit messy and limited on what you can do with font type and font size.  Your chapters might end anywhere in the page, and the worst is that when you are trying to fix it, your book is out there available to the public – there is no in-between or prelude to the publishing button.  I was so worried that I could not get Moonlit Valley as spiffy as in the Amazon Kindle, that I became frustrated.  However, I hadn’t finish fixing my file when I already had three downloads for a sample of the novel – I guess a good thing.  How I dealt with this feeling?  It was easy.  I searched for the books of famous and best-selling authors, then looked at their file – they were having the same issues and troubles with how the novel looked.  Then,  I guessed that there was no way getting around that – Smashwords electronic books will never look as perfect as Amazon Kindle, but at least will offer readers who use the e-formats mentioned above the opportunity to find my books, and sample them.

I find that offering Moonlit Valley through Amazon in paperback and kindle format, as well as offering it through Smashwords in various e-formats covers pretty much everything (check the Novels tab in this blog).  So I am sticking with this way of doing things.  I advice that you  create profiles in Amazon USA, UK, France, EU, and that you do it in the main language (use goggle translator) as well as follow-up with an English description underneath (just in case).  Making use of the forums on Amazon/CS from time to time is a good idea as well. One thing I wish I could do is to manage all the Amazon stuff from one Hub, meaning the CS, Kindle, and Author Central – it would save much back and forth.

As far as social networking goes, I love Facebook because it offers so much, and although I don’t love twitter’s format that much, I am trying to get used to it.  To me, FB is more geared to follow-up in conversation, while Twitter feels like a bunch of birds chirping at the same time, with little or no interaction between them.  I will give it some time. One word of advice to new authors trying to get into social media, “it is not that easy to transfer all your people from your personal FB account into your Author Page – most of them will not click to join the new page, but they are more than happy to interact with you through your personal FB account.  So my advice is that if you are like me, who cannot bother with too many profiles and accounts (hence why I condensed two blogs into this one and this one will serve as my author blog as well), the best thing is to start your FB or Twitter accounts with your author name – it will be much easier in the long run.  I made that mistake, so now I share on both. I guess if you are using a pen name, then you have to keep multiples of everything, and to me that translates into nightmare.

For me, keeping it simple works best, despite all the advice out there saying that you  have to be in every format/platform available.  For me, doing that would be contra productive because I would end up tired, overwhelmed, and dreading the whole thing, and with no desire to write, which is the main purpose – writing novels.  For me this is what works:  Amazon +Kindle + Author Central + Smashwords + Facebook + Twitter + WordPress = A happy writer.

In the end, we want to be happy writers and enjoy the process.  Too much of anything gets in the way, that is how I feel.

MOONLIT VALLEY

MOONLIT VALLEY

I am adding this link as I think it is important news about the battle between Amazon and bookstores – http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/20/drm-lawsuit-independent-bookstores-amazon_n_2727519.html

New Writers – Beware of Writing Sites

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I am writing this post for all new writers who are thinking about joining writing sites.  When I started writing online, I wasn’t sure of what venue to choose so I selected a few popular sites to write for them, thinking that this would be beneficial for my writing career.  Unfortunately, I started to notice that one of those sites – called Triond, started allowing very bad writing – mostly from people who wanted to make a quick buck and didn’t care about writing garbage and ill edited articles.  The staff let those articles go through, without editing them.  Some of these articles were actually unreadable – just picture a string of keywords with no meaning to them.  Fearing that associating with that site would hurt my career, I contacted them and asked that my content be removed and my account canceled/closed.  My account was closed, and at that time, it seemed that my articles were blocked and they did not show as published.  This happened more than two years ago.

Today, while reviewing some links on this blog, I came across old content that had a link to one of those articles.  I clicked on it and to my surprise, the article did show up published.  I kept clicking on some of the old links and most of them were showing active.  Not only that, but there were all kinds of ads running on them, making Triond money.  I am disgusted.  Immediately, I clicked the contact link and wrote to them asking that my content be removed or blocked.  Lets see what happens.  I hope I get a response this time.

In the meantime, my face and work is plastered on that site, along with all the craziness and bad writing going on.  There are very good writers on that site too, not all  is bad writing, but a huge percentage is bad written content, and that is the only reason I wanted to disassociate my name from it.  I never had a problem with the site otherwise; I just did not agree with their practice of bad editing and letting anything go through to publishing.

Let my experience serve you as a measure to choose a writing site very wisely and carefully, to avoid situations like this one.  I hope that Triond listens and blocks all of my content, which they are not authorized to publish anymore.

Writing Candy – Sifting the Husks

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Let me start by saying that the path to a writing career requires a certain amount of study and learning, and tons of practice.  I say a certain amount because, writing should be your  primary focus.  Learning and reading other authors will teach you a great deal; however, it is by writing and rewriting that you will learn.  I wish I knew this when I started on this journey, it would have save me some precious time, but no ones knows it all.  With this in mind, from time to time, I try to share with you any blogs or sites that I think would have saved me much time, if I had known of them earlier.  This is in the hopes of saving you some time so you can embrace your writing.  Although everyone learns in different ways and pace, I can tell you that in my case I had to sift between much hay and debris to get to the grain.  For me the learning process was exhausting at times.  This is the reason I get so excited when I come across a blog or website that gives me the feeling of “Wow, I wish I had found you sooner.”  Here are a few that will certainly teach you or inform you in the right direction.

I don’t know how long these sites have been around but I recognize that these are professionals in their craft, and reading them early in your writing journey will help a great deal.  I hope that you enjoy these sites, as much as I do.