Posts filed under 'Opinion'
Chasing That Figure Down the Dark Alley: What To Do With Writer’s Block
Um… Yeah, I got nothing.
I can’t think of a single interesting topic for this week’s post. So, what does that lead me to, naturally? That’s right! Writer’s block.
What’s with writer’s block, anyway? What weird mechanism in the human brain allows for the stoppage in the flow of ideas and inspiration? And why does writing about writer’s block seem to be one of the sure-fire ways around it?
I think it’s because you’re writing something even if it’s only to complain about not being able to write. Eventually all the trite metaphors about writer’s block make way for an actual idea.
That reminds me of reading Reader’s Digest at my grandparents’ house, when I was much younger, and stumbling upon a short article about laughter being the best medicine. Something we’ve all heard before, I’m sure. And something about – because it’s all very vague now – mimicking laughter even if you’re feeling sad. That the physical cues of laughing would cause the real laughter to follow. It worked for me.
But then, so does saying, “Wookie Cookies” – don’t ask.
This must be why it’s okay to write, for pages on end, “I don’t know what to write.” Eventually it should lead to something resembling real writing – right? Gosh, I hope so, because all I keep seeing in my head is a trench-coated figure disappearing ‘round the corner of a red brick building, and I’m really tired of chasing him down the alley.
So, instead of having a Shining-like moment, maybe I should just fake laughing? What do y’all do when you get stuck? I know I wrote about inspiration last time, but there’s got to be other (more interesting?) ways of getting past writer’s block. Help!
-Jenn
7 comments July 10, 2008
Music, Movies or a Hair-flip? Where’s Your Writing Inspiration Come From?
Where do you get your inspiration for writing? Do you find it in everyday things? The way a bird in flight broke sharply to the left, chasing a summer bug. The way your co-worker flips her hair when talking about an ex-boyfriend. A picture posted on a fan’s blog about Buffy, The Vampire Slayer.
Or do you seek out specific types of inspiration? Movies? Paintings? Photos? Books? Trash? Music? Do you start with an idea and find the thing(s) that flesh out the idea, inspire the direction of the story or poem or novel?
With music, for example, do you put on the music first, writing what comes to mind when listening to Morphine, The Shins, Bach or Schubert? Or does the story come first with the music simply an inconsequential background sound? What if the music creeps through, into the writing, without you have noticed?
Doesn’t the fluidity of writing mean that anything can creep through? Whether music or your co-worker’s hair-flip, don’t a thousand things subconsciously infiltrate the stories and poems we write, making them totally different than what we initially conceived?
So how do we stop ourselves from going overboard? How do prevent ourselves from incorporating all of our everyday stimuli into our writing? Where’s the filter? Is this one of the marks of a great writer that they have that filter, that the means of their inspiration isn’t immediately obvious to the reader? Is this how they’re books or poems or essays become the means of our inspiration?
-Jenn
3 comments June 26, 2008
Book Bloggers: We’re Here! We’re Viral! Get Used To It!
It’s no secret that writing and publishing company blogs are the marketing wave of the future. In addition to increasing your SEO (search engine optimization) with fresh content, blogs are also the perfect platform to actually engage interested readers.
But becoming an active blogger is more than simply posting your insightful articles on the publishing industry and your opinions of print-on-demand technology or Kindle. You also have to seek out similar industry blogs and participate in the ongoing discussions on other Web sites. Joining their conversations provides you with the much needed exposure to other book marketing forums as well as writing groups that may want the information on which you’re commenting.
That’s the reason it’s important that author bloggers keep a running list of publishing discussion boards and other similar Weblogs. With your list, you can visit each Web site, read up on the latest developments in your marketing field and even post a comment referring to articles that you’ve written and posted to your blog.
But how can you hope to manage the colossal list of publishing and writing blogs while searching the Internet for new, relevant ones as well?
Introducting Comment Sniper, the completely free blog software that allows authors to stay current and increase their Internet traffic.
What is Comment Sniper?
Comment Sniper is a free blog monitoring software that allows anyone to track recent updates to leading blogs within select industries in order to maximize your exposure by being the first to comment. Once downloaded, users can cull specific blogs from WordPress, Blogger, Live Spaces and Google by searching for the keywords that best suit their marketing needs and goals. It’s really an amazing developement in blog tracking and networking strategies. By simply selecting those blogs that interest you most, you can give premium updates on your blog or Web site within relevant articles and associate your Web site with prime Internet real estate.
Here’s How This Simple Proven Strategy Works…
- You find the most popular & influential blogs relating to your industry and niche audience and load them into Comment Sniper for 24/7 monitoring of new articles being posted.
- You then configure the Comment Sniper with your mobile phone number (for optional SMS monitoring notifications), leaving Comment Sniper running in the background and connected to the Internet.
- You’ll receive immediate Desktop Notification and/or an SMS to your mobile phone the second a new post is made on any of the blogs you’ve selected to monitor.
- With the advantage of being alerted (regardless of where you are) of the new post, moments after it has been made, you can then visit and be the first to comment on the new post. Your comment should of course be genuine and add value to the article being discussed… readers will click through to your website more often if you take the blog article and add value to it with your comments.
- Repeat this as often as you can when notifications are received. Not only will you receive an immediate influx of visitors from the leading blogs in your industry, but the more valuable, targeted, and theme relevant links you create to your own website on these blogs, the better your overall search engine rankings will become.
(from Comment Sniper hompage)
As a blogger who recently discovered Comment Sniper, believe me - this software has become invaluable to spreading the word about Wordclay as well as providing information to other curious audiences about self-publishing and the DIY book marketing process. Trust me when I say that Comment Sniper is not only a free, useful book promotion tool, but also the perfect way stay in the loop of the ever-growing publishing industry.
Download this easy-to-use, innovative blog monitoring software today, and start marketing your new book by selecting the blogs that will provide the exposure you deserve.
Like I said, downloading the software is free, and there’s no hidden charge for working within their program. If you can spare five minutes, then you can begin your journey down a manageable, lucrative book marketing blog campaign.
This is Justin, blogcasting from Wordclay, signing off.
2 comments June 17, 2008
Insider’s Tips: How to Get Your Book Stocked in an Independent Bookstore
For most of my adult working-life, long before becoming a book designer, I’ve worked at independent bookstores. Most recently, for about nine years, I worked at The Book Corner — a Bloomington, Ind. institution for more than 60 years (in one form or another). Though we didn’t sell the same volume of books as the larger corporate stores, we had a pretty faithful customer-base and the best magazine selection in the whole city. Some of what I learned at The Book Corner might be helpful for self-published or print-on-demand authors.
We had our share of local authors coming into the store, trying to get us to put their books on our shelves. Margaret, the owner and manager of the store, had pretty clear-cut criteria for what would allow her to carry a local author’s self-published book.
First, the book had to be available from Ingram Book Company. More than likely, we weren’t going to order the book directly from the publisher because we’d have to pay (more…)
2 comments June 12, 2008
Which is best? Reading the book, before the film, or after?
With the continuing trend of turning bestselling books (even not-so-bestselling) into movies, is it still better to read the book before seeing the film, or should you wait to read the book until after seeing Hollywood’s adaptation (great movie, by the way!)?
I’ve always been the traditionalist, refusing to see a movie till after I’ve read the book. For the most part, I think this has served me well. True, I do get disappointed a fair amount of the time when favorite bits from a novel aren’t included in the screen narrative, but I also get to enjoy having some amazing prose brought to life, visually.
I’m not just talking the characters, either. I’m talking the lyricism of an author’s particular style of writing being faithfully and beautifully adapted to the screen. The example that springs to mind most easily is Michael Ondaatje’s English Patient, lovingly put on celluloid by Anthony Minghella. There were lots of instances where the two narratives didn’t match up, but it was like I was watching the language of the book translated into light.
But then, you’ve got series of books—Harry Potter, for example—where you read the first four volumes, as soon as they come out, go and see the first film when it premieres (which was much too juvenile a reflection of the first book), and from then on out, you are forced to see these young actors as the characters in the books, when before it was left to your imagination. So, read all the books before seeing any of the films?
On the other hand, if I could have waited to read The Golden Compass until after I saw the movie, maybe I wouldn’t have been so heart-wrenchingly disappointed with the adaptation. Granted, waiting to read the book wouldn’t have made it a better film, but maybe I wouldn’t have felt so betrayed.
I haven’t read The Hobbit yet, so maybe I’ll wait to read it until after seeing Guillermo del Toro’s two-movie adaptation of the book (and whatever story is supposed to follow). I trust del Toro as a filmmaker and storyteller (how great was Pan’s Labyrinth?!), and imagine he’ll do his best to faithfully adapt the narrative and the “feel” of the book, especially with Peter Jackson producing. I guess it’s a good book/movie combination to experiment with because, honestly, I can’t think of any examples, off-hand, where I’ve seen the movie first and read the book later. Unless I didn’t know there was a book to begin with …
So, what y’all think? Which is better? Read the book first, or see the movie first?
-Jenn
Add comment May 29, 2008
Where’s Your Best Reading Spot? Where’s Your Favorite Writing Retreat?
Are the places we enjoy reading also the places we enjoy writing? I have this idyllic image in my head, of a young woman in a long skirt, sitting beneath a green, leafy tree, legs pulled up beneath her, reading a book resting in her lap. There’s a hill of green rising up behind her, white clouds floating across a blue sky (in no particular hurry) and sheep grazing on the hill. Yep – I’ve read/seen too many Jane Austen stories.
But could you write in this idealized space? Probably. As long as the bugs didn’t annoy you too much, the sheep didn’t attempt to eat your paper, and the clouds didn’t turn angry. But who actually “writes” anymore, scribbling words across the page, the pen making that distinct scratching sound? That seems as much of an anachronism as the young lady in the long skirt. Would your laptop work in the green hills?
Where is the best place to read or write? A nice, comfy chair might be just the ticket for a couple of hours of reading, but the same chair, when attempting to write the next great American novel, can lead to extensive yawning and a quick nap to refresh one’s perspective.
I can’t read in moving vehicles, except planes, so I’m pretty sure I couldn’t write, either – I’ve never really tried, though. Writing on planes seems like it would be easy, but a car or bus? Yeah, I’m going to dismiss these locations out-of-hand – not appealing in any way.
Nostalgia of high school and college brings to mind the diners in which we’d set up shop for the night – books, and notebooks, and endless glasses of iced tea and, later, cups of coffee. Old, overstuffed booths with the stuffing creeping from rips in the vinyl and tables 
sticky from the rag used to “clean” them. And pie. Isolated, kinda, but you can hear the surrounding people, maybe incorporate snippets of random conversation into the story you’re attempting to finish…or start. Too many cigarettes while reading or talking about the line or paragraph you’ve just read. Yeah, I like the diner scene.
Where else can writing and reading be enjoyed equally? Are there books or magazines out there that address the idea of creating spaces specifically for these pursuits? You’ve got libraries and you’ve got offices, but someone, somewhere has to want to reinvent these spaces – right?
-Jenn
1 comment May 15, 2008
SEO Writing: Getting Your Unique Voice, Your Literary Authority and Your Authorship Noticed on the Internet
What is SEO?
Short for Search Engine Optimization, SEO writing utilizes the keywords of your Internet articles and posts to locate your content when an individual searches on your subjects. For instance, when a person searches on “free self-publishing,” the Wordclay blog will be listed among the pages that may interest you. Similarly, when a person types “free author Web sites” into the Google field, AuthorTree will be listed as one of the sites you would want to visit.
The Next Step
Say you’ve published your book and perhaps you’ve even set up a free author Web site with AuthorTree. Now what?
In order to get as much Internet exposure as possible, you need relevant and insightful content that will not only reveal the virtues of your recent publication, but also optimize the odds that readers will stumble upon your title as they search on specific keywords and loyally read certain periodicals.
For example, your book may concern a particularly heated political issue, so your target audience may visit blogs and news feeds that examine these issues at length. Even if you’re not writing for CNN, you can still draft and submit relevant articles to other Internet corners that are related to your field of expertise. The more people read your insightful prose and hear the authority in your voice, the more they’ll trust your book is a good investment.
It doesn’t stop with articles either. There are plenty of Internet journals that allow writers to post or submit reviews. Topics of these articles are numerous, with subjects such as TV shows, movies, books, magazines, comics, art exhibits, music albums, cultural and sub-cultural events, as well as other forms of emerging multimedia platforms.
You may also want to submit more personal articles to various e-zines. If you’ve had a recent dating experience others might enjoy, check out Nerve, where you may consider submitting a piece of creative nonfiction. Or if you’re particularly interested in pop culture, maybe visit PopMatters and search out a place for your voice.
As you post these reviews and feature stories, your recognition should grow as your writing infiltrates the digital world. (more…)
4 comments May 6, 2008
How High Can You Count? An Innovative Video Experiment Calls for Submissions
Browsing one of my favorite Web sites, The Internet Movie Database, for information on Joss Whedon’s new TV series for the Fall, I stumbled upon a link at the bottom of their home page.
There’s a guy, Adam Box, takes his inspiration from Kyle MacDonald’s book, One Red Paperclip, and the non-profit organization The 1 Second Film, not to mention some random guy who collected pictures of sheep from around the world. Considering all this, Box decided to put together a film project for his family—specifically his daughter—and called for submission.
Called Counting High, numbers from 1 to 123,465 will each get their own frame in the film. And everyone who participates in the project gets their very own number to design as they please, in whatever medium they choose.
My number’s 23. Which I’m totally loving—it’s prime, figures somewhat extensively in Lost lore, it’s sort of round—it’s just a cool number.
But I can’t, for the life of me, figure out what to do with it. I could paint it, I could sculpt it, I could choose a font and have large black text on white paper…I could have my hapless co-workers form the numbers on the floor of the auditorium and take a picture. Hee, hee.
The ways in which I can use this number are endless so, I’m having trouble focusing. And, really, with 25 frames per second, the chances of anyone seeing my number and being profoundly affected by its design are pretty low. It’s not about any single number, is it? It’s about the effect of the whole, all 123, 456 numbers.
So, if you want a number, visit Count High, read the background behind the project and e-mail Adam your request for a number—I think he still has a ways to go. Maybe I’ll get “23” tattooed on me somewhere, take a picture of it and use that as my submission. Problem solved!
-Jenn
Add comment May 1, 2008
Written on the Body: The Art of Tattoo Storytelling
“Skin” isn’t in the book. Rather, it’s a “mortal work of art: a story tattooed on readers’ bodies, one word at a time.” Only the participants of the story will receive a complete copy of the whole story, and I want to be one of those participants.
It’s been almost two years since I e-mailed Shelley about my desire and willingness to be part of the project and, with only 315 words left to distribute, my chances don’t look too good.
I’ve long been fascinated with words – not just words that roll off the tongue well, or have cool meanings – but how words look. The combination of the font, the letters in the word, coupled with the meaning of the word, has an affect on me that I can’t, well, put into words.
When I was a kid, maybe nine- or ten-years-old, I used to beg my sister to write words on me with those colored markers that smelled like fruit. It’s funny, though, she had terrible writing, and I was always disappointed with the outcome. Then, I discovered tattooing and Peter Greenaway’s film, The Pillow Book. Check out the review on Rottentomatoes.com. Together, it was a realization of what I tried to get my sister to do as a child – indelible words on my skin.
Like Justin, though he has me beat by the sheer amount of ink on him, I love my tattoos. And I love the words I have tattooed on me – but I’m not part of a collective story. Not collectively written, but a written upon collective.
And it makes me wonder about the convergence of flesh and words and meaning, and if the same word tattooed on two different people means the same thing. Or if the same word in two different books (or even the same book) means the same thing. And if they don’t, then how can we come to a consensus over any written text, whether on paper or skin?
I guess that’s why there are so many books out there – we haven’t come up with all the ways stories can be told – or written.
4 comments April 17, 2008
Wordclay Self-Publishing Feedback: Step Right Up & Take Your Best Shot
Greetings, Earthlings,
Wordbot here, and today Wordclay has authorized this publishing robot to open the floor up to our fellow bloggers.
Think about it – now’s your chance to tell Wordclay your opinion of our Web site and publishing philosophy without inhibiting or censoring yourself. The gloves are off, and we want to improve based on what you, emerging writers and authors, want!
Questions To Consider:
There’s no limit to the feedback you can provide. Simply be honest and reasonable, and our professionals will make every effort to adapt. Our ultimate goal for publishing is to make the process as hassle-free as humanly possible for contemporary authors looking for an affordable publishing solution, both now and well into the future.
Obviously, submitting your viewpoint is integral to our future in the publishing marketplace, and your opinions will definitely help us create (and sustain) a Wordclay environment where authors (and robots) can publish a book on their own terms, their own timelines, with their own royalty rates. So post your comment below and “help us help you.”
Or, if you’re shy, you can always e-mail your comments to customersupport@wordclay.com with “attn: Wordclay Blog” in the subject line.
Wordbot upload completed. Transmission ended.
2 comments June 24, 2008