Angela Booth's Writing Blog

Writing Goals: One Word To Help You To Achieve Your Dreams

Several weeks ago a writer contacted me who confided: “I’ve tried to write. But after I write a couple of chapters of a book, I give up. Please don’t ask me to set set writing goals. Clearly they don’t work for me.”

Perhaps you’re like this writer. You start more books than you finish. You feel that writing goals don’t work for you.

Here’s a secret. You need to set two kinds of goals.

Writing goals: set process goals, as well as achievement goals

You need both process goals as well as achievement goals.

Process goals involve what you do, daily, or weekly.

Achievement goals (sometimes termed “outcome” goals) are what you hope to achieve via your process goals.

via www.justwriteabook.com

Writing Short Stories: 5 Tips You Can Use Today

Writing short stories: can you make money writing short stories?

Yes, if you understand what readers want and the self-publishing environment today.

Food for thought:

• Readers like short fiction. They’re looking for a quick hit of entertainment. If you can write entertaining short stories, you can sell them;
• Be aware of genre. Readers read particular genres because they want a certain kind of entertainment. Give it to them;
• Integrate your short fiction into your publishing program. Use short stories for promotion, as well as selling them;
• Avoid dumping all your stories into KDP Select, and calling it good. Charge for your stories and go wide. That is, sell on all the ebook retailers you can. In the past several months, authors report that they’re selling as many stories (in some cases more) on retailers like Apple than they are on Amazon.

via www.fabfreelancewriting.com

Write Short Stories, and Sell Them, FAST

Start writing!

We’re living in amazing times. Years ago if anyone had suggested that writers could write short stories and make a living, you’d laugh. No one’s laughing now. We’re busy writing…

2019 update: the Short Reads’ secrets

From an article on Amazon’s “secret” categories:

When discussing publishing short stories and short nonfiction with my students, I’ve found that most are unaware of Kindle Short Reads. The category and its sub-categories can seem secret, because you can’t select them; Amazon drops your books into these categories via algorithm.

via www.fabfreelancewriting.com

Writing Fiction: Your Most Vital Decision

Wondering how to choose a genre?

In Write Your Bestseller: Write HOT Mystery, Thriller & Suspense we look at genre, and how to find MTS (mystery, thriller, suspense) genre opportunities:

… (some self-publishing authors) write whatever’s popular at the time: vampire romances, billionaire romances, domestic thrillers… you MUST write to market on some level. With hundreds of thousands of books published each year… you can’t leave book sales to crossed fingers and a fervent hope that you’ll get lucky.

You’ll find the program’s guidance very useful for any fiction genre, not just mysteries.

Since Amazon lumps Mystery, Thriller, and Suspense together as a top genre, what’s the difference between those genres?

via www.fabfreelancewriting.com

Write Your Novel: Character Journals

You’ve (finally) decided to write your novel. You’ve written ten or 100 pages, and it’s painful, because your characters refuse to come alive. You feel like a puppet master, jerking strings on lumps of wood.

I’ve had that happen on a couple of novels, and it wasn’t pleasant.

Marjory, my editor at the time, suggested that I create character journals. Why not let my story people speak for themselves?

Why is writing your novel so challenging?

If you don’t know your characters, writing your novel will be an ongoing, horrid struggle. Character journals end the struggle.

via www.justwriteabook.com

3 Easy Bullet Journaling Tips For Writers And Authors

A bullet journal helps you to know where you are and where you’re headed. It will even help you to build the road that will get you there.

I keep an Ikea trolley beside my desk. The top tray contains eight notebooks, some coil-bound; some hardcover. Three are bullet journals.

From the article on doubling your output with batching and time blocking:

Many writers use digital calendars; I don’t. With an app, you can adjust the time and date at a click. I use paper planners, so that when I put things off, the evidence of my procrastination is right in front of me.

Try the basic bullet journal method — no need to get fancy

Sometimes when I suggest bullet journaling to a writer he responds with: it’s too complicated. Yes, there’s that. Some folks’ “bullet journals” look like art journals.

via www.fabfreelancewriting.com

Focus Your Writing: How To Cope With Too Many Ideas

You know you should be writing a current project, but you’ve just had a wonderful idea. You’re writing a novel, let’s say, when an idea for another novel pops into your mind.

Suddenly your current project looks shop-worn. Your bright shiny new idea is much better. So you start writing a new novel. After all, this new idea is brilliant.

Not too many weeks later, you get an even more brilliant idea. Again, you put your current novel aside, and begin yet another novel.

“I can’t get started. I’ve got too many ideas…”

The too many ideas problem may strike when you’ve just finished a project. You procrastinate. You’ve got a long list of brilliant ideas. There’s this one, and that one… Since you can’t choose, you don’t.

Eventually, all professional writers learn how to manage their ideas, and you can too. Let’s look at how you can deal with the distractions.

via www.fabfreelancewriting.com

A Clever Writing Process: Double Your Productivity Today

A writing process to lessen stress and increase your income

Look on batching as a companion process to time blocking.

“Batching” means grouping similar tasks together on your calendar and to do list, then doing them consecutively. For example, you might batch returning calls and responding to emails.

In writing, you can batch:

• Creating blog post/ web content;
• Developing new scenes in fiction;
• Research. Instead of researching in the middle of writing, try creating a running list of topics you need to research. Then block out time to get it done;
• Marketing tasks, like creating ads, and social media;
• Developing proposals, quotes and invoices for clients…

via www.fabfreelancewriting.com

Become An Independent Writer: 3 Offerings

In honor of US Independence Day, we’ve created three special offerings this week, to help you to declare your own independence.

Imagine you’re an independent writer

While life as an independent writer may not be all beer and pizza, at least you don’t need to work to anyone’s schedule. You can write from midnight to six in the morning if you’re a night owl.

What could you do if you could arrange your life pretty much as you pleased, as long as you scheduled your writing?

We have three offerings for you. Two for authors, and one for aspiring copywriters. You receive a 20% discount, and the offers are available until July 10.

via www.fabfreelancewriting.com

Write Short Stories: 3 Powerful Strategies

Write short stories: be alert for opportunities

I enjoy writing short stories because it’s restful while I’m writing novels. If a novel’s a tangled mess, I take a break to write a quick story. That’s usually enough to let me approach the novel with a fresh idea.

Writing a story while I take a break works much better than simply goofing off, because I keep my momentum. Often, I’ll write a scene in a new story, then immediately find a solution to my problem with the novel.

The moral: keep writing.

Opportunities to use your short stories are everywhere:

• Send a story to your email list to promote an upcoming novel, or one of your older titles;
• Check the freelance marketplaces for clients who want short fiction;
• Watch for authors compiling bundles in your genre; it’s useful promotion…

Let’s look at three strategies you can use.

via www.fabfreelancewriting.com

Writing A Book: 3 Tips To Help When You Have No Time

Let’s assume that no matter how busy we are, we can find ten to 20 minutes a day, somehow. If all else fails, we may need cut back on sleep, but we can do it.

You need more than time, however. While managing your hours can be done easily enough, managing yourself isn’t as simple. You need to deal with fear.

Writing a book can be scary

When I started writing, I’d sit at my green Olivetti typewriter, and later at my IBM Selectric, with tears rolling down my face. This misery went on for a couple of years, but I sat anyway.

The sitting was key. It never occurred to me to leave my desk. I sat at my typewriter and wrote. The tears stopped eventually. I didn’t face my fears; I out-sat them.

You can do this too. No matter how anxious you are, stay at your desk.

via www.justwriteabook.com

Side Hustles: Three Great Writing Businesses To Start Today - Angela Booth's Fab Freelance Writing Blog

Side hustles for writers: have pen, will travel

That’s the beauty of many writing gigs: you can write anywhere. I know several over-achieving writers who schedule vacations and mini breaks specifically to have something to write about.

You can do this too.

A tip: if you’re traveling to a location, take your camera. No camera? Use your phone’s camera.

Now let’s look at three great side hustles you can turn into writing businesses.

via www.fabfreelancewriting.com

Improve Your Writing Today: 3 Easy Tips

Improve your writing the easy way: sit at your desk

Over the years, I’ve met writers, and worked with many. Here’s a simple formula if you want to improve your writing:

Desire + Time.

Do you want to improve? Wanting something is always the first step to getting it. The second step may be more challenging, but desire helps and so does enjoyment (see the second tip, below.) The second step is: spend time.

Before I forget: my student got two replies to her direct messages. One writer spends six hours a day; the other spends up to 14 hours because he’s currently working on edits for a book, while writing another one.

Let’s look at three tips you can use today.

via www.fabfreelancewriting.com

Social Media Marketing: 3 Easy Tips You Can Use Today

Want to sell more? Use social media marketing — and focus on images. While that seems counterintuitive for a writer, images are vitally important in social media, and are vital for marketing in general.

If you’re an indie author, you know the importance of a quality cover — your cover wins attention. Similarly, in social media marketing today, images get attention for what you’re offering.

You’ll make sales when you combine social media, copywriting, and images.

An aside… Before we go on, I need to mention that we’re removing our program Social Media Copywriting And Graphics — Get Attention And Sell More. I’m devoting more time to writing fiction. So if you want to improve your social media game, take advantage of the final offer on this program.

via www.fabfreelancewriting.com

Mystery Fiction: 3 Tips To Create Excitement And Suspense

Remember — your plot is what your characters do.

Here’s a question for you.

Mystery fiction: “how do I make this exciting?”

Try asking yourself every day (whether you’re writing mystery fiction or any other genre): how do I make this exciting?

When you look for opportunities to create excitement, you’ll find them.

Now let’s look at some tips to help you to create excitement and suspense.

1. Avoid info dumps. Mystery and suspense benefit from keeping things to yourself

A couple of years ago I suggested that you kill your TMI habit:

Want to write better fiction? Here’s the simplest way — kill your Too Much Information (TMI) habit. Keep your readers mystified as much as possible. Of course, there’s a real art to this. You want your readers to be in suspense, rather than confused and annoyed.

via www.fabfreelancewriting.com