Angela Booth's Writing Blog

Should You Share Your In-Progress Writing?

So look, no one can make you share your work if you don't want to. I share bits and pieces of my work pretty regularly — I am notorious for dropping a paragraph of the day into a Gchat window — and I also have someone who reads my work on a daily basis, which is a great luxury to have. But I also have friends who will write for years and years, entire drafts of books, that they won't show to anyone at all, and if you ask them how they're doing, they'll just say vaguely that they're working. So everyone's got a different strategy.

via www.powells.com

I never share early drafts. I can't see the point. If I don't know what I want the writing to say, how could anyone else's input be relevant?

That's my take on it. For me, early drafts are discovery drafts.

How to Remember What You Read

A simple remedy to forgetfulness is to read novels more than once. A professor I had in college would often, to the point of irony, cite Nabokov’s statement that there is no reading, only rereading. Yet he was teaching a class in modern fiction, and assigned books that are generally known as “slim” contemporary classics. They were short, and we were being tested on them—we’d be foolish to read them only once. I read them at least twice, and now remember them.

via www.newyorker.com

I've found that. Once I finish a novel, I just remember a few scenes. Once I reread it however, I remember much more.

Memory is weird. :-)

Writing a Book? Stop Thinking So Much

Stop over-thinking your first draft, start editing your second draft

Will resisting the urge to over-think produce a better first draft? Yes. Will it produce a perfect first draft? No. But that’s what editing is for.

via www.helpingwritersbecomeauthors.com

If you're anything like me, you need to learn the "stop thinking so much" lesson over and over again.

Writing a Novel? Make Something Happen NOW

Authors’ biggest mistake is that nothing much happens on the first page. People talk. There’s some info dumping, but nothing HAPPENS. When something does happen, it’s weird. For example, one First Page entry had a woman on her own in a snowbound cabin. A stranger comes to her door. She welcomes him, and gets fussy about some potato crisps which were past their use-by date. You might well think HUH?! Undeniably, this novel’s heroine was TSTL (Too Stupid to Live)… she’s alone, miles from anywhere, in a snowbound cabin and she drags a strange man into the cabin… This could have been set up well, if she’d been nervous.. But she was worried about potato crisps.

via www.justwriteabook.com

You're writing a novel. Make stuff happen -- on every page.

Yes, You Can Make Money Writing Ebooks

Many years ago, my father pointed out to me that writing books for a living made racehorse gambling look like a sane, steady business. Amazon changed all that. Nowadays, if you’re keen and dedicated, you CAN make money writing books.

When writers ask me Can you really, truly, honestly make money writing ebooks?, they want to know whether ebook-writing is a viable option – are “normal” writers making money, or just the bestselling authors?

via www.justwriteabook.com

I've had several questions about money and ebooks this week. The above article offers the attributes of successful ebook writers.

(Giggle) Writing: the Easy Life

I wish my job was as easy as yours.

• Please, have a seat. Write something. Not much, just 500 words that are good enough to satisfy the Bills. I.Dare.You.

via robinfollette.com

Love this list. We writers have it SO easy...

Can't Do It? Do It Anyway

There’s nothing more likely to get him interested in doing something than to be told it couldn’t be done. If you were to meet with someone who said, ‘Oh, that can’t be done,’ you’d probably say, ‘Okay, I won’t do it then.’ Richard would say that those people wouldn’t succeed in business. 

via www.openforum.com

If they tell you "it can't be done" -- people are always telling writers this -- do it anyway.

I'm a huge fan of WIGs: Wildly Improbable Goals.

Set a WIG today. Show them it can be done by doing it.

How To Collaborate On Your Book

Don't sweat the small stuff

There's always going to be some sort of altercation in any team effort that's worth doing, but it's vital to know when to let things go. "But I really love the zombie scarecrows" isn't going to cut it if this doesn't fit in with the book as a whole. You must be prepared to shelve your ego and listen to your co-writer's opinion; if she really hates it, she could well have a point

via www.guardian.co.uk

Is collaboration for you?

I've "collaborated" with other writers when I was commissioned by publishers, and wrote a section or a couple of chapters of a book. The projects were fine, and paid well. One of the (few) benefits of traditional publishing is that you pick up these kinds of projects.

I've never considered a "Lily Herne" kind of collaboration, it sounds like fun.

Fun and Easy Markdown Tutorial

Unlike cumbersome word processing applications, text written in Markdown can be easily shared between computers, mobile phones, and people. It's quickly becoming the writing standard for academics, scientists, and creative people. Websites like GitHub and reddit use Markdown to style their comments.

Markdown is a format that requires a very gentle learning curve. It doesn't control the font size, color, or type. All you have control over is the display of the text—stuff like making things bold, creating headers, and organizing lists.

via learn-markdown.herokuapp.com

I adore Markdown. It's the easiest way to write for the Web, because your simple plain-text documents can be instantly converted to HTML, RTF (ready for Word), or PDF.

Your Time To Write Is Infinite

Even fifteen minutes is long enough to write. For years I told myself, “If I don’t have three or four hours clear, there’s no point in starting.” Now I realize that if I’m deep in a project (see #1), even a short bit of time is long enough to get something done.

via www.happiness-project.com

When my students tell me that they have "no time to write", I ask them whether they can spare 20 minutes a day.

How much can you write in 20 minutes? Can you write 250 words? If you can, that's page, and that's a book, over the course of a year.

Writing for the Web Series Continues

The basic process: get paid for your content and make $500 a day and more

1. Decide what you want to write

2. Write samples – post them on your own site

3. Look for companies which need the kind of content you’re writing

4. Approach those companies

via www.fabfreelancewriting.com

Here's the latest article on writing for the Web on our freelance writing blog.

You'll find links to previous articles at the end of the post.

Grab Ideas Before They Vanish

As a new fan of How I Met Your Mother, I was thrilled when Ted pulled out a yellow legal pad (and backup yellow legal pad) in P.S. I Love You in order to work out a big problem. Let’s start with the science behind using a yellow legal pad: studies show that color helps us remember things – hence why many teachers encouraged us to use colored index cards to make flash cards when we were younger.

via campfirechic.com

Great post. I use all those methods of capturing ideas, and adore yellow legal pads. They're great for working out ideas -- extending them. A single page on a yellow pad has turned into a book for me, more than once.

Great Advice: Tell a Story

I also think writers should stop worrying about writing a novel. They envision three hundred pages to go, and it frightens them. It’s a long and daunting road to travel.

Instead, they should be interested only in telling a good story. If that story happens to take a couple of hundred pages to tell, so much the better.

via venturegalleries.com

When you tell yourself you're just telling a story, writing your novel becomes much easier.

Freelancers Are Happier

We’ve talked about the Kindle ebooks survey. Brenda Hiatt surveyed 60 Kindle authors, and found that “2012 indie-only earnings per author averaged $137,940 (yes, you read that right) with the median earnings figure at $51,211 per author.”

Would you be happy with a six-figure income? Can you make that kind of money at your day job, without working for 16 hours a day?

via www.fabfreelancewriting.com

These days, you can make great money as a writer. If you're hesitating about going freelance, consider that freelancers tend to be happier.

Game to Try Freelance Writing?

Play the Odds

Ultimately, securing freelance work is a numbers game — the more prospective clients you contact, the more likely you are to find work. That is the equation you should keep in mind. If you have a reasonable skill set and create a quality brand, there is no reason why you cannot succeed in the world of freelancing like so many others have before you.

via mashable.com

On our freelance writing blog, our theme is writing for the Web. We're looking at the scenario of a new writer, who aims to make $500 a day.

The above article may inspire you -- everyone started somewhere.