Texting, Audiobooks and Writers

What do texting and audiobooks have to do with writers? I learned over the past week that texting and writers don't mix. I've also learned that if I am sitting up listening to an audiobook, I tend to stay awake but if I recline and turn the book on and just let it sit on my nightstand that I tend to fall asleep. Texting in general is a terrible form of communication for anyone. With all the abbreviations and "text speak" out there, it is very difficult to keep track of what you are saying. This writer doesn't abbreviate when texting and even so, she tends to misspell words that there is no reason to misspell. I was texting a friend the other day who was about to leave for a month-long trip to Serbia and was telling about my free download for kindle of Finally Home and also that I had some "short" stories available for 99 cents. Well, I meant short stories, but what came out was "slopt" and how that came about was a simple error of hitting the incorrect number key associated with the letters. I thought I was keying in the 4 for the H and the rest of the numbers were okay but when I hit the 5 instead of the 4, it put in the word "slopt", not that I believe that is a word. But it was funny when she texted me back saying she loved "slopt" stories. As a writer, we are told to use our words and when we get sidetracked with text messaging and other short forms of communicating like this, we tend to get sloppy and everything comes out incorrectly. My advice to writers who insist on texting (my preferred form of communication is email or actually talking on the phone) don't abbreviate your words. Use your words and use them correctly. As far as audiobooks, I suggest trying them - listen in the car when traveling and if too much of a distraction, then it's not for you; try them when getting ready for bed or just listen to them when you are working out. They are a great form of getting your reading time in every day. I have listened to 2 full books (although I do believe I fell asleep during one of them and may have missed some of the book or perhaps if I did, I went back and relistened to what I had missed) and have 3 more in my library to listen to. I am in the process of listening to The Story of Dr. Doolittle and know I fell asleep the other night. No worries, since I know I can rewind to a place I remember actually hearing. I wonder if reading a different book than you are listening to counts as reading several books at a time? My guess is yes since you are getting the reading in by either actually seeing the words on the page or hearing them as read by someone else. I used to think I wouldn't be one of these people who could read several books at a time but I guess I just proved myself wrong as I am currently visually reading a book and listening to a book. If you are looking for a way to lull yourself to sleep, I suggest opening an audiobook and unless its an intense thriller or suspense novel, that should work in putting to you sleep. No wonder babies fall asleep when mothers read to them. It's that soothing sound of the voice that lulls them into slumber. See you all in the postings - E :)

Self-Imposed Deadlines

When working with a publisher, you have set deadlines; unless the publisher runs into problems on their end, you must meet the deadlines in order to have your book published. If the publisher says they need editing changes by a certain date, do your best to meet the deadline.

If you are a self-pubbed author, using a place like createspace.com to print your books, you have to set your priorities and try to adhere to your own deadlines. What if you miss your self-imposed deadline? Is it a big deal? It may be on yourself but in the end, you know what must done in order to get your book ready to be published.

Set realistic deadlines. Sometimes this is harder than it sounds, especially if you are working with an illustrator or cover artist or graphic designer. These can be all the same person or several different people. Unless you know how to do book layouts and/or have the proper software to accomplish a professional book layout, you will need someone to do that. If you are writing a children's story that needs illustrations, you will need an illustrator, who probably should also design your cover. Make sure you are working with someone who has a good work ethic and adheres to your timeline as much as possible.

This is the tricky part because we all know life happens and sometimes deadlines have to changed, moved up to a better date for both parties or sometimes they inadvertently get missed.

What's the best way to stay on track with self-imposed deadlines? Keep a calendar (either a wall, desk pad calendar or pocket one works well) or some sort of worksheet (can be an excel spreadsheet or a google docs spreadsheet) so that you can keep track of when you want to get your book published. Along with this is the marketing planning that needs to be implemented as soon as you start writing your first draft. Does this always happen? No, again, life happens. If you are a working parent and have small children still at home, it is harder to work on the whole plan in large chunks. By time you get to spend time on writing, it is usually late night or the wee hours of the morning and your sleep hours start dwindling tremendously. If you work outside the home and don't have kids still at home, again you are under stress from your day-to-day job and social life that it is hard to actually spend as much time as you would like on your writing life.

If you fall into a different category, you have to find the right balance. For this writer, teenagers demand much of her time outside of a full-time job. I have to put forth self-imposed deadlines. I need to be more diligent about sticking to my deadlines so that I can get my books out, especially my state books. These have been neglected for the past year but that's not to say I haven't been working on my writing or publishing or marketing during that time. I just have let my self-imposed deadlines become something of the past. When I first began self-pubbing, I worked with my illustrator and we stayed pretty close to our deadlines. She then graduated high school and started college and deadlines are becoming harder and harder to meet.

I guess one could say that self-imposed deadlines are like setting goals and checking them off as they occur. Again, one has to consider everything and everyone involved in the process in order to set realistic deadlines. I had a chat session with my illustrator so that we could work on setting some deadlines. Some items have been neglected for many months and I really need them fixed before moving on to other state stories. Hopefully with exams winding down and the rest of the school stuff slacking off for a bit before summer classes start, she can dedicate the time needed to get her graphic designing business back on track.

Not all the self-imposed deadlines involve others as we have all heard that the writing profession is a lonely one. We all have to sit down and set our own deadlines for different tasks. My deadlines are to at least get several (possibly 3) state stories written within a month to six weeks (hopefully by mid June) and to my editor. Again, she is busy and may not have time to edit so I may be in search of a new editor. If I can at least get the stories written, when it is time for my illustrator to do her magic, they should be ready to go.

The other deadlines involve my short stories and getting them published as ebooks. We have deadlines for "Butterfly Halves" (a YA fantasy) to be published in May; "La Cave" (a past lives romance story) sometime in July or August and "Zombies Amuck" (a children's R.L Stine like story) to be published in October (I think having a zombies story published during October is very appropriate). The last deadline I have is to have Imogene: Innocense Lost completed by November. I hope to have my thoughts for cover to my illustrator so that even before I decide to publish I'll have something to market.

I will strive harder to at least meet most of my self-imposed deadlines and let the rest fall where it may as far as my editor and illustrator are concerned. They know what they have to do and what deadlines they need to meet. They know what their priorities are.

So I ask you, do you use self-imposed deadlines in your business? If so, leave a comment and let us know what kind of self-imposed deadlines you have set for yourself, even if you are not a writer or working on a current project. See you all in the postings - E :)

First draft from heart/rewrites from head

I was watching "Finding Forrester" the other night with Sean Connery (a recluse author). I've seen it before but it's been a long time since I last saw the movie. I missed the beginning so don't remember how Jamal (the black boy) comes to find Forrester (Sean Connery). The scene where they are typing away on those old manual typewriters had a very poignant line in it and so I thought I'd share my thoughts about that.

Sean is just typing away and Jamal (don't remember the actor's name) is kind of sitting at his typewriter really not sure what to do with himself at this point. So Sean goes, "You write your draft from the heart and your rewrites from the head." He also goes on to say your first draft is for getting the words down on paper, and your rewrites are for making it better, stronger (this isn't the direct quote but something similar to what he said).

This is pretty much how I've learned to write my stories, and so this is a philosophy that I do believe in. The object when you first start writing is to get the story down. When you go back through it and read, edit, mark it, et cetera, you make it stronger, you make it correct.

A lot of folks try to edit while they write, which I'm sure works for some folks but in the long run, it will save you a lot of headaches if you don't think about what you are writing and just let the words flow and get them down on paper. When you edit while writing, you tend to spend so much time making it right and every time you change something in one place you end up having to make changes in several places. Personally, I couldn't do that, especially if the story already has a strong hold in my mind and it just needs to be told.

I know some authors who are constantly working on writing the first draft and editing a different manuscript. They have noted that this requires both sides of their brains so it is a break from one to do the other. This is very true as writing the story allows your creative side to come out and play and editing requires you to think and be logical and follow the rules of the language and writing.

My WIP should be almost completely written by now but I have too many unknowns and they require a lot of research before I really can write the story. I'm sure once I have a chance to do some very serious research (I'd love to travel and explore and have first hand experience but that isn't going to happen for a long while, so my research will be online for the time being) and the unknowns are dealt with that the characters will speak to me more strongly and they will tell their story.

So the next time you have a story that is just wanting to get told, remember to draft from your heart (write that story and not worry about the semantics of it) and then rewrite from your head.

Keep writing. See you all in the postings - E :)