Guest Blogger

Guest Blog: The Promise of the Cheat Sheet by Jonathan (fwc)

Nadia Lee Guest Blogger 1 Comment

organizationThere are many ways to study, revise and work whether it be on paper, computer or somewhere between. In any case, there is one very useful tool which can help organize, compress and simplify your work and that is the cheat sheet. To show the power of this tool I will describe using a cheat sheet in forming a plot and revising a story for whatever purpose you may have.

Start by writing what you feel, what comes out of your head the natural creative impulse inside you. It may feel awkward at first, but if you have taken a few English courses and know the basic rules it shouldn't be long before you have a thousand word down regarding some theme. It may not be very good, but the quality is not very important at this stage; the session has really been a kind of brainstorming.

The next step is to work on transforming this thousand words into a short story, novella or novel, depending on how ambitious you are feeling. The shorter the length, the easier the transformation and this is the point where the cheat sheet comes into play. The cheat sheet organizes what can be a confusing and directionless blurb and give the writing structure and purpose. As long as the writer has a few characters and a background setting the cheat sheet acts as a very simple way to keep the momentum going till the end of the journey.

"What will be on this cheat sheet?" is probably the next logical question. "Anything really" is the first answer, but it's important to have certain structure to the sheet. It's probably helpful to put the most important aspects of the story, like the plot, at the top of the page, with lower priority sections at the bottom.

After completing a few cheat sheets, you may begin to notice a pattern in the way you organize your thoughts and create a template for the sheet. A novel may have a different template than a short story, and a technical paper may have a different template than a blog post. The sheet may also turn into a storage box for your words if you need to re-organize the story. For example, you may come up with a really good line from one of the characters but find it impossible for it to fit directly into that piece of dialogue. Assuming you don't want to delete the sentence all together or leave it floating around the original document, it might be useful to copy it over to the cheat sheet and save it for later when there is a more appropriate place for it.

This shows the versatility and ease with which someone can create a cheat sheet for their own work. If you create certain rules for your writing they can be kept on this sheet as well as any info dumping you just have to do for yourself but don't want to include on the main document. The inclusion of a table can make the cheat sheet easily demarcated for cutting into cards.

What's important to remember is that this is an organization tool and is designed to keep the writer focused so you don't stray and leave half-completed works scattered around your desk/desktop.

You can follow Jonathan on Twitter (@fwc).

Guest Blog: Living Naked by Zoe Winters

Nadia Lee Guest Blogger 7 Comments ,

KEPT by Zoe WintersThanks to Nadia for having me here today!

Nadia asked me to blog about my experience as an indie author and how it's working out. In some ways it's working out great. In other ways it's definitely not easy. I'm not sure if authors who are traditionally published get a rulebook or not, but I know that indies don't.

We're expected to know the rules going in both socially and from a business angle. We're expected to know how to interact with our readers and fans, with reviewers (positive and negative), and with the online publishing world in general.

From the beginning, I've been a very opinionated indie. I'm someone who isn't afraid to speak my mind about things. Sometimes this gets me into drama. Sometimes it earns me enemies or just people who "will never read me now". That last part sucks, since as an indie, I need readers or I won't make it. I don't have somebody else's marketing department to help push me to a wider audience. Though I realize many traditionally published authors don't have that nearly as much as they'd like or need either.

I'm on a very steep learning curve, not just in publishing, but in social interactivity... how much to market, when to stop, what lines not to cross, and which lines to cross. Sometimes being seen as controversial is a good thing. It gets me exposure I wouldn't have normally had. It gets me talked about. It ultimately gets me sales.

Sometimes the fallout isn't as good. And even when it nets me sales, it also nets me stress and drama.

So my experience has been a mixed bag. On the one hand, I really love self-publishing. I love being in control of the entire process, hiring a cover artist, picking my own editors, and telling the story I want to tell with no apologies. In romance there are a lot of formulas. Many publishers want a certain number of sex scenes occurring at certain points in the story. They want a certain heat level. They have rules about what language you can use. Etc. etc.

I didn't want to be stifled in that way, and so that's been another wonderful thing about being indie.

I've met a lot of really cool, talented, and self-possessed indie authors like Moriah Jovan, R.J. Keller, M.T. Murphy, and Kait Nolan, to name just a few. Each of them has a different way they go about being indie and slightly different goals and motivations.

I love running my own business and keeping all the profit.

I really love being a part of an indie movement in authorship that should have happened back when it became cool to be an indie musician or indie filmmaker. But it's happening now. So that's what matters.

Initially a lot of people told me not to do it, that it was some sort of career suicide. I never felt that way, since I could just start over with a new pen name if I didn't like how things went for Zoe. I didn't want the pressure of traditional publishing and deadlines and such. The irony is that I've learned a lot about myself here, including that I often create my own pressure and chaos no matter what road I'm on. And it's not something I can avoid by merely taking a different aesthetic path.

I ignored the well-meaning advice of those who told me not to go indie. I saw a future in indie authorship and particularly in ebooks. I started growing my audience and marketing my work. One of my little marketing projects is the Zoe Who? series, which is a youtube cartoon series about my self-publishing journey poking fun at the publishing industry, romance, and myself (lots of material there, LOL).

I try to be genuine, looking for that line between being genuine, and maintaining some level of emotional privacy. It seems to be overall paying off, since more people seem to be attracted to me than repelled by me.

Right now, as an indie, I live pretty naked because I talk a lot about my experiences as a writer and as an indie in particular. There are a lot of things I struggle with including "how should I present myself?", "how should I engage?", "when should I disengage?" that often become the topics of blog posts because I know I can't be the only author who feels this way, who feels sometimes the creative flow shuts off from too much Internet connection.

I try to form genuine connections with readers and people on Twitter, Facebook, and through blog hopping because we all want connection and if someone likes you they are more open and receptive to checking your work out. This has opened a lot of doors to helping overcome reader objections and getting my work read by an ever-widening audience.

My three novellas, Kept, Claimed, and Mated, generally hang out in the top 1,000 of the overall Kindle store, out of over 700,000 titles. I'm very proud of that, but I have a long way to go.

I'm constantly growing. This growth takes place in my writing and how I package my work. I recently had the novella covers slightly revamped by my cover artist to look more polished. (I had designed those particular covers originally.) The growth is also ongoing personally in how I handle the various emotional changes involved in putting work out there without a net or rulebook.

Hopefully my experiences help someone else who wants to do the same things.

Overall, it has been an incredibly rewarding journey and, yes, I would go indie again. And I want to stay indie forever.

You can find Zoe at:

http://www.zoewinters.org
http://zoewinters.wordpress.com
http://www.twitter.com/zoewinters

Guest Blog: A Year of Non-Fiction? by Emily

Nadia Lee Guest Blogger 3 Comments ,

nonfictionI have been utterly and completely turned off reading fiction.

I'm not sure why, but I just don't wanna.

I've been to the library a couple of times since I got back home -- and god, I love the public libraries here in Singapore! -- and I always walk away empty-handed from the fiction section. I go to bookstores, and wander out again, not having spent a single, precious penny. Which means I'm spending a ridiculous amount of cash on needlework stash and I really don't need any more -- FYI, my TBR pile is usually about 10 books and I have already achieved what we stitchers call SABLE: Stash Acquisition Beyond Life Expectancy.

Do you know what amount of monstrous effort that would normally require of me? Do you have any idea?

I'm someone who usually reads upwards of 200 novels each year. There are years when I make it close to, or even past the 300 mark.

Now I can't remember the last time I read a novel. Can't remember the last time I wanted to.

It's depressing, is what it is. I don't think I'm going to make it to the two hundred mark this year for novels.

I watch some TV. I have gotten rather addicted to NCIS for reasons best known only to my squishy, pulpy inner self. And I know it's not the same. My true self, who is a bookworm, would never dream of likening TV to a book.

I listen to a lot of podcasts from the BBC and the Economist -- I save a lot of time by not reading newspapers any more and using that time for stitching.

So I'm thinking.

An enforced year of reading only non-fiction. There's nothing to stop me from reading narrative non-fiction, or watching TV or movies (I want to watch Salt!).

It might kill me. Or it might be my salvation and I'll read nothing but fiction in 2012 -- assuming that the world's still here, and that I'm back at university, I'm pretty sure I'll need it.

Do you think you could do it? Or do you think your soul would shrivel up into dry and cracked leather?

Emily spent the past three years in the cold and wet, and is now basking in the tropical sun. She was born in Malaysia, grew up in Singapore, and educated in Britain, and wishes people would realise an international lifestyle is actually all about the packing and unpacking.

Guest Blog: La Vida Loca by Maria Zannini

Nadia Lee Guest Blogger 21 Comments

TOUCH OF FIRE by Maria ZanniniFor those of you who don't know me, I homestead on six acres in north Texas. It's a fine life if you don't mind the scorpions, snakes and the serenade of lions at night. (I live less than a half mile from a big cat preserve.)

If you follow my blog, you know sometimes my life becomes a little too real.

Crickets and grasshoppers hit you like shrapnel as you walk through crunchy dry grass. The air is thick and hot, and when I come in from mucking out the chicken coop or double-digging the garden, my muscles remind me that I'm going to need that glass of wine as soon as the sun goes down.

I'm living La Vida Loca, brothers and sisters! I've learned more about world building and characterization in the last twelve months than I had in the last twelve years when I was climbing the corporate ladder. Who knew living in the country would make me a better writer?

Maybe downtown offices and big city living zombifies you a little. How many of us relish rush hour traffic, computer meltdowns, and crabby coworkers? Like everyone else, I went through the paces.

Moving to the country changed all that. Now, my day to day experiences are important and I better pay attention because they can also be painful. My first hard-knock lesson was delivered by a little scorpion that decided to get into bed with me.

My dog, Iko told me there was something amiss, but I shushed him and told him to go to bed. My pinky paid the ultimate price and throbbed for two days. It felt like someone had mashed it with a hammer. You bet I pay attention to that dog now. He gets a cookie for every scorpion he corners.

There have been snakes that have slithered past me, the angry buzzing of hornets, and the silent shadow of a giant black widow spider as it secured its egg sack to her web. When buzzards circle high in the sky, I'm sure to find a dead deer or a humongous wild boar.

A hen will cluck contentedly after she's laid her egg. A rooster will crow with pride after he's laid...well, you know.

A fire can roar out of control in seconds, and a dog can hear trouble long before you do. These are the things I've learned in the past year.

And these are the moments I look for when I write my stories. That's a departure for me. Plot used to be the most critical. Now I look for the telltale clues of what makes people (and nature) click. And I learned it all from twisting ankles, burning fingers, and tearing my clothes off when I discovered I had picked up a log full of ants.

Will I ever learn?

I'll bet my ancestors had a bit more snap than I do.

But it makes me wonder. Has the proliferation of media made us less aware or are we just too busy to notice the subtler moments of life?

I'm learning the hard way how to be more conscious to the things around me, but I don't know that I'll ever be as good as my forefathers. Thank goodness for paramedics!

How about you? Do you think you're aware of your surroundings? If you came to live with me for a month, how do you think you'd fare?

Thank you, dear Nadia for letting me stop by. And thank you for not having any scorpions around -- virtual or otherwise.

After years of working as an advertising artist and art director, Maria Zannini now lives in the middle of nowhere on six acres she calls heaven. Half a mile to the north is a lion refuge, to the south, there be llamas.

Maria writes sensual stories of legend and mythos.  Her first book, Touch of Fire is a post apocalyptic story set 1200 years in the future. But watch out! She's going Sci-Fi and thriller on you with True Believers, coming to Carina Press October 18.

Follow her blog as she discovers new and creative ways to maim herself on the homestead.

Guest Blog: How Thick Is Your Skin? by Sandy Wills

Nadia Lee Guest Blogger 10 Comments

Sandy WillsI've been critting a ton of stories recently. A lot of the crits have been for people I've never read before, and that's always scary -- both for me and for the author. The author is putting their manuscript in my hands, and I'm doing my best to help them improve their work.

The key word in that last sentence is help. That's my intention with everything I read, but I'm the type of critter who likes to pour my thoughts out onto the page. When I receive a crit, I always find it helpful to learn what a reader is thinking when they get to certain points in the manuscript. That helps me decide if I accomplished what I intended to with a certain scene or snippet of dialogue. So in my mind, more comments = better crit.

But it occurred to me (yeah, like just now occurred to me) that others might not feel the same way, and I have this horrible worry that maybe I say too much. I always preface my remarks with things like This is just my opinion and These are only suggestions of things to think about, but sometimes, the critted manuscripts end up having solid comments down the margin of the first few pages. I'm feeling kind of dense because it's taken me so long to realize this might be intimidating to some people.

When it comes to crits, my skin is like iron (*knocks on wood* in case I just jinxed myself). You can tell me you despised my book, my heroine is too stupid to live, the hero is boring, the dialogue is cheesy, etc. I'm able to view your comments through a lens. It doesn't hurt me; it gives me things to think about. Would it be nice if you pointed out what you liked about my book, too? Sure. And that would make your crit overall more helpful to me, but it's definitely not a requirement. I'm totally cool with harsh crits.

A part of me -- the nerdy part which is obsessed with statistics -- wonders how many writers out there have skin as thick as mine. For example, what would be the breakdown if we classified ourselves into the following categories regarding the type of feedback we want:

  1. thin - Just tell me the good stuff. I need all the encouragement I can get.
  2. thinnish - Tell me mostly good stuff. I need to know what IS working.
  3. normal - I need an equal balance of the good and the bad.
  4. thickish - I want to know what's not working, but scatter in some encouragement.
  5. thick - Nothing you can say will hurt me. Tell me EVERYTHING that's wrong.

I'm guessing most people here would say #4 -- thickish. That's the skin thickness my crits are intended for, but I'm wondering if I should move towards #3 and crit with an equal amount of good and bad (I really hate the term "bad") stuff, especially if the writer is just starting out. The last thing I want to do is discourage people from writing, but I don't like the idea of telling them only the good stuff either. I don't feel like that's helping them, and really, isn't the goal of critiquing to be helpful?

So you tell me: how thick is your skin? In other words, what type of feedback do you like in the crits you receive? What about in the crits you give? And does that level of feedback change if you're critting for someone who's relatively new to writing?

Sandy Wills is an urban fantasy author represented by Joanna Stampfel-Volpe. When she's not writing or reading romance novels, she can be found masquerading as a librarian, screaming at a rock concert, or kicking butt in the latest board games. She blogs on Livejournal and is a Twitter-addict.

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