CornerScribe

Archive for February, 2008

I see this one all the time, and it drives me nuts. It’s also a very easy mistake to avoid, with a simple memory trick.

A lot is always two words, never alot.

To help you remember, you would never write alittle, so never write alot.

Easy, right?

You’re writing one or more blogs and keeping up with them pretty well. Why would you take the time to keep a blogging schedule?

Before we get started, let me know you what my blogging schedule looks like for the first few days of March.

3/1 NaNoEdMo kickoff post

3/2 Popular links from February

3/3 Synergy Magazine

3/4 Using email filters to manage your email and get more done

As you see, I don’t do anything terribly fancy, but I do this for each of my blogs to keep me on track. I’ve found that it has multiple benefits.

• When I have an idea, I add it to the “schedule” before I forget it. This also keeps most of my blogging ideas in one place
• Since I already have ideas in the works, I face writer’s block much less often
• If I have something time-sensitive, I put it on the schedule so I won’t forget it
• I can be sure that I’m covering each of my categories as well as I’d like to since I have a monthly overview of what I’m writing about
• I can build some anticipation for posts by mentioning that they’re upcoming
• My reading time also benefits my blogging more with this method. When I see a post that I’d like to reference or get an idea, I drop it onto the schedule
• To save even more time, I sometimes write the posts ahead of time and schedule them to post via wordpress
• I often add my fiction and other non-fiction to the schedule as well, giving me an easy way to view where my writing time is going

If you’re not already keeping some sort of writing/blogging schedule, then I challenge you to try it for a month. I’ve found that it really speeds up my writing time by allowing me to write instead of try to find something to write about. Let me know how it works out for you.

It’s that time of year again, and to be honest, I almost FORGOT. That tells you just how busy (and preoccupied) I’ve been.

March is NaNoEdMo. That’s National Novel Editing Month.

If you participated in NaNoWriMo in November or just have a novel in a drawer that needs work, then consider signing up. The rules are pretty simple: spend 50 hours in March editing your novel. If you have more questions, then go here.

I think editing is much more difficult than writing the rough draft, and having some motivation to put butt in chair and pen in hand every day is a good thing. I’ll be participating this year, and we’ll see what we get by the end of March.

If anyone else is interested, post a comment here. My username is jkay on the site, so look me up!

Edited to add:

Here are a few tips to get started…

• If you like to work from paper, then print your novel now.
• Buy whatever pens, sticky-notes or other supplies you’ll need.
• Clean off your desk or work-space.
• If the novel is unfinished, spend the next couple weeks writing. If you can’t finish it, at least jot down some scene ideas so you know where things are going and how it will end.
• Make a list of your characters with name, age, description and a few crucial notes. This is especially helpful if the novel has sat untouched for a while.
• Make a one page outline of major scenes so you can see where the plot is going and decide what needs to be changed.
• Talk to your family about delegating some work next month. You’ll need almost 2 hours a day to make the goal, so think where you can get that time now.
• Practice getting up earlier if you plan to do that to get more writing time.
• Consider having lunch at your desk and getting some editing time there if that’s do-able where you work.
• Have fun with it! Spend some time socializing with your fellow writers as well; don’t forget that this is meant to be enjoyable.

I love spammers. I love Akismet more, since it keeps all this garbage from showing up on the blog. I did notice one today that I almost approved.

“Hi, I’m Dr. Richards. Check out my Cialis profile.”

Dude. If you’re on Cialis, I do not want to see your profile.

Steve Pavlina usually has great articles, but this one is especially good. He points out a problem many bloggers, including me, struggle with.

If you want to make money, then treat your blog like a business, not like a blog.

Some of his points really hit home. I’ve spent most of my time developing content for my blogs and not nearly enough time marketing and promoting. Yep, my traffic numbers show it too. One of my goals this year is to boost traffic, so his article on making money from blogging couldn’t have come at a better time.

Here are some interesting points from the article (but head over and read the whole thing yourself anyway).

• He spends only about 20 percent of his time writing content
• He’s worked on multiple income streams; not all his income comes from ads and affiliates on the blog
• Writing for money is nothing to be ashamed of, and you should avoid those who try to make you feel that it is

Go over, read the article, and make a plan for some things you can do right now to promote your business (blog). Here are some ideas to get you started.

• Write a note to thank your recent commenters
• Participate in online forums
• Send an email to a blogger you read, introducing your site
• Participate in a social networking site that is appropriate to your niche
• Write an article that’s out of your comfort zone; often those are the ones that draw traffic
• Try something unconventional!

List any other ideas you have in the comments below.

Dear blogger,

1. Put sound on your site. It doesn’t matter what it is, as long as it’s noisy. Music and ads work equally well.
2. Bonus points if it’s exceptionally loud.
3. Double bonus if it’s also a little racy, the kind of thing I don’t want everyone in my department hearing.
4. Make your site slooooooooooow to load. If it’s taking less than 30 seconds, add a few more widgets and animations.
5. Add more animations anyway, you know you want to.
6. Put what I’m looking for somewhere I’ll never find it. This goes double for Entrecarders. I don’t care if your widget is above the fold, just put it somewhere on the FRONT PAGE for crying out loud!
7. Write a one line summary and then link to someone else’s REAL article. I bet they love it when you try to make money from their work. I know I love being sent on a wild goose chase for it.
8. How about some nice pop up ads?
9. Bonus points if the ad shows a nearly naked woman. Yep, I want someone wandering by and seeing me looking at that.
10. Choose some funky color combination that will make your blog virtually impossible to read. Even better, make it migraine inducing.

Whether you’re writing your first novel or you have a few novels stuck in a drawer somewhere, you should find these tips handy. These tips will walk you through how to begin writing a novel and help you get through the novel writing process.

Outlining vs. Spontaneous

If you’ve done something like NaNoWriMo, then you probably have some experience with trying to write a novel by the seat of your pants. That works well for some people, not for others. I say, you’ll never know if it works for you until you try. I enjoy this method, but it doesn’t usually result in a good first draft for me.

The pros: You’ll have fun watching the novel unfold as you write. You’re probably less likely to get bored, and you’ll enjoy the plot twists and surprises this novel writing technique provides.

The cons: You’re more likely to write yourself into a corner and not know how to get out. You may write and write and have no idea how to end the novel. The draft is likely to be much less tightly structured and need a lot more revision on your second pass through.

If you choose to outline, you’ll avoid some of these pitfalls, but this novel writing method brings its own problems as well. I find writing from an outline can be boring and stale. Often, I’ve worked on the story so much I’m already getting a bit tired of it.

The pros: This draft should be better organized and the novel structure should be tighter. You’re unlikely to get lost or find yourself with 100,000 words and no ending in sight.

The cons: You may find this writing method stale or boring. If you find it boring, then your readers certainly will.

My compromise is this… I outline a little ahead of where I am in the novel and work from that, allowing it to change if it needs to. I don’t know the novel’s ending when I begin, but I do know the first few scenes. I keep that perspective throughout the work.

Editing vs. Proofreading

Editing is much harder than proofreading and should be done first. You’ll ask yourself tough questions, like

• Does this scene work? Ask yourself whether it advances the plot, or shows something crucial about the characters involved. If the answer is no to the former, then can you show the same thing in another scene that is necessary?
• Does the scene belong in the novel at all? If you removed it, would anyone but you miss it?
• Would a person really do that? I’ve seen this one in my writer’s group a lot. For whatever reason, fictional characters do things in the novel that no real person would ever consider. Even if you need the character to do it for the plot, you can’t make it happen if it doesn’t make sense.
• Does the plot need restructuring? Flashbacks are a good example. They’re tough to handle well, so you might want to avoid them if you can. Also, many writers start the book much too early, with too much backstory. Start the novel as late as you can.
• Is the point of view right for this novel? Is it consistent? Even if you’re used to one point of view, consider trying one scene in a different one to see if it works. Make sure that your point of view is consistent throughout the novel.
• Do people really talk that way? This one is a little tricky. You don’t want your characters to sound stilted or fake, but you don’t want to mimic real conversation either. Real people use lots of incomplete sentences, mutter, add ums and uhs, skip around, etc. Read your dialogue aloud to make sure it sounds real without sounding TOO REAL.

You’ll typically do more cutting than adding, and you’ll need to be ruthless. This is a good time to show the novel to someone who can do a critique for you. Be clear that you’re not interested in commas and quotes at this time, you’re interested in the larger view.

When the story is tight, the scenes are well-developed, and the characters believable, then you’re ready to tackle proofreading. Spelling, grammar, punctuation should all be on your list of things to check. This is a good time to get someone who’s good at that sort of thing to review your work, even if you’re good at it too. You can’t catch everything.

I love listening in on other people’s conversations. Here is one from today.

First, I heard a woman explaining to her companions “that if you don’t keep their teeth, they’ll sell them.” That was intriguing enough that I listened, and it turns out that she believes funeral homes sell the teeth of the deceased, unless you keep them.

Wouldn’t you love Sunday dinner at her house. “There’s my daughter’s cheerleading trophy,  our wedding photos, and Aunt Martha’s dentures. You know they’ll sell them if you don’t take them, don’t you?”

Now, I’m not sure that there’s a lucrative market in used dentures, but even if there were, what do I care? What the heck am I going to do with them anyway?

Wouldn’t that make a great tongue-in-cheek (couldn’t resist!) horror story?

I’m putting together a Writing Resource page. As you can see, I have a few categories in mind, but I haven’t done much with the links themselves. I’d like this to become a very comprehensive, useful resource over the next few weeks.

Here’s where you all come in. I’m accepting submissions for links to add to the page.

Send me a link to a post on your site with a brief summary of what it covers. If your entire site is writing-related, send me that link as well.

Feel free to send links to others’ sites as well. Suggest a category you’d like to see me include.

I’m not going to promise to link back to everyone; in fact, I plan on only linking to the best submissions. I’d rather have a few dozen excellent resources than a couple hundred mediocre ones.

Edited to add: Of course, leaving your links in the comments is fine. If you’d prefer, email me at cornerscribe AT cornerscribe DOT com. I don’t check my email daily, so don’t get worried if you don’t hear from me immediately. Also, if you submit multiple links, your comment will likely get caught in my spam filter. It would be better to submit each link in a separate comment (or by email).

I’ve been talking about getting more serious about traffic and RSS subscribers as part of this year’s blogging goals. Here’s how I did in January, and more importantly, how I did it.

In December I had only about 4300 page views. Not very spectacular, is it? In January, that was 10,500. I’m very pleased with that.

I also increased my RSS subscribers from low 20’s to about 30. Right now, it’s 31. RSS subscriptions are very tough to get (and keep), so I’m happy with that as well.

How did I do it?

I did a few things differently to promote the site. I’m not sure which had the greatest effect, but overall things are working well.

• I joined Entrecard. As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, I was concerned about the quality of traffic. I’m seeing not only more visits, but more subscribers and more commenters. I think it has turned out to be a good choice.
• I participated in a writing contest at Daily Blog Tips. Writing contests are a great traffic builder, especially when the site is as popular as his.
• I ran a contest to increase RSS subscribers. Also, I repeatedly reminded people of the contest and asked them to subscribe.
• I participated in the forums over at Entrecard. Specifically, I participated in stumble exchanges. StumbleUpon is a consistent source of traffic for me anyway, so it makes sense to drive more to the site if possible.

I plan on keeping up the same tactics for this month, minus the contest. I may run some sort of Entrecard contest later this month, but I haven’t decided what it might be.

As I’ve already mentioned, I’m participating in Project Wonderful.  I’m ready to begin buying ads there instead of only selling them, and I’m hoping that will boost my traffic as well. If you’re running ads and have a good deal, leave me a comment. I’m shopping for some ad space.

I don’t expect to see another doubling of page views (though it would be nice!). I do want to see a significant increase, maybe to 15000 or better. If anyone has any tips I that have worked well for you, leave them in the comments.