Angela Booth's Writing Blog

NEW: Memories -- Writing and Selling Your Life Stories

Are you missing the BIG stories that only YOU can tell?

Most new writers miss out on one big source of inspiration: themselves.

It's not your fault. When you start your professional writing career, it's HARD. You're learning how to write: choosing the right words, completing projects you've never handled before... You're anxious, most of the time.

You look for writing inspiration outside yourself. You want to write like everyone else, and like your favorite writers.

However, chances are that you'll come into your own as a writer, when you mine your own life stories. That's where the gold is. You can turn even the worst things in your life into gold, if you start writing about yourself.

via angelaswritingclasses.com

Our new coaching workshop has gone live.

Discover "life writing."

Hilary Mantel's 10 Rules for Writers

2. Read Becoming a Writer, by Dorothea Brande. Then do what it says, including the tasks you think are impossible. You will particularly hate the advice to write first thing in the morning, but if you can manage it, it might well be the best thing you ever do for yourself. This book is about becoming a writer from the inside out. Many later advice manuals derive from it. You don't ­really need any others, though if you want to boost your confidence, "how to" books seldom do any harm. You can kick-start a whole book with some little writing exercise.

via www.guardian.co.uk

Brilliant.

"$500 a Day" Series On Fab Freelance Writing Blog - Angela Booth's Writepreneur: Your Writing Business

This week's "make $500 a day from your writing" series on Fab Freelance Writing Blog has sparked a huge amount of interest. I'm very pleased that it's helping readers.

I've already created a long list of topics I want to explore on the blog, just from hearing about writers' challenges, and listening to the responses to the posts. I love it when something I write gives me MORE to write about. Excellent! :-)

via www.writepreneur.com

I've had so many emails and calls about the series, I may make it a regular feature of the blog this year. Obviously it's striking a nerve.

Writing is Talking, So LISTEN

Dubner, who once fronted a rock band, considers writing and music twins.  He uses repetition, call-and-response and varies the lengths of his words and sentences the way a composer varies musical notes and phrases. And Dubner, who has written five books and hundreds of articles (most of which will be read silently by his readers), never forgot his mother’s advice, telling us,

“After writing every sentence, I read the words aloud.”

via theartofdoing.com

If you don't want to read your material aloud, get a text to speech program. Most operating systems include these. Check your Help files.

FWIW, I use a Mac OS X app called Speech.

Scrivener's Split Screen: Perfect

With Split Screen mode you can divide the Editor screen into two different panes. It’s easy and painless (no pun intended). Each pane works independently of each other. If you need to change settings on one pane, no need to worry that it will switch the settings in the other one.

via www.rebecaschiller.com

I adore Scrivener. One of my favorite features is the split screen.

Rebecca explains it to you in the above article.

New MS Word: Is It For You?

The new Design tab

Document formats can be further extended by choosing Themes, Colors, and Fonts to use with them. If you come up with something you’d like to use all the time, the new Set as Default option allows you to make the current combination of formatting settings the default for all new documents.Word 2007 and Word 2010 added interesting features for styling a document, but the tools were scattered throughout the user interface, and they were difficult to use. The new Word 2013 Design tab consolidates all these tools onto one tab, so they’re easy to find.

via www.pcworld.com

I've been a loyal MS Word user for a couple of decades. However, I'm using Word less and less.

Upgrading to the latest version doesn't make sense for me. The above article outlines 10 new features.

Reading Jane Austen: How to Start

1. Sense and Sensibility. This was Austen’s first novel, published in 1811 (Factoid: she initially wrote it in epistolary format and later changed it to a more traditional narrative). You’ll be introduced to Austen’s biting social commentary, subtle satire, and romance-as-comedy-of-manners plot lines.

via bookriot.com

Feeling left out because everyone's read Jane Austen and you haven't?

I'm envious... You have wonderful times ahead.

Tips from Julian Fellowes (Downton Abbey)

There are days when I realize I'm writing rubbish. But my solution is not to not write. I plan a plot structure, and usually the writer's block passes.

via www.oprah.com

Terrific creativity tips from the creator of the amazing Downton Abbey series.

Books: The Bright Side of Horrible Reviews

Negative book reviews are a fact of life

They will happen.  But being prepared for such an experience doesn’t make the pain any less real.  A negative book review can feel like a dagger to the heart.  And often times, the pain can put us off of writing for weeks – or even years.

via blog.bookbaby.com

Terrified of bad book reviews? There's a bright side. Several bright sides, as the above article mentions.

Here's another one: after a few bad reviews you won't care. You'll be too busy writing your next book.

Do Less, Achieve More

Anything I've done that really worked happened because, either by sheer will or a lack of options, I was incredibly focused on one problem. Blogger started as a side project of my first company, Pyra Labs.

via www.inc.com

I'm a Gemini, so I have a butterfly mind. I'm curious about everything, and while this is a fine trait for a writer, it also leads to incomplete projects. Every year. (I have a "Later" folder for each year, dating back to 2004.)

Evan Williams -- of Blogger and Twitter fame -- has great advice.

I'm taking it to heart. Perhaps it will help you, too.

Around the Blogs January 27, 2013

This past week, we covered: getting book reviews, writing well, and some basic info for new copywriters.

I also blogged some fun stuff on my Tumblr micro-blog.

Want Your Book Reviewed? Learn How to Pitch

You’ll get book reviews, if you’re genuine, and learn how to pitch reviewers. It’s not complicated.

If You Need to Write Well Online: 5 tips

If you need to write online, but aren’t comfortable with it, you can develop the writing skills you need. These five tips will help.

Top 10 Copywriting Tips for New Copywriters

You’re a new copywriter. Congratulations. Writing copy is a lot of fun, and it can be very lucrative too.

Beginning Copywriter: How Long to Build a Business?

You have a flair with words. You enjoy writing and marketing. You’re interested in psychology, and read junk mail with interest. If this sounds like you, you may be ready for a copywriting career.

Take Your Time

Today, the challenge is, as Krista has shown, to be insightful enough and patient enough to use the (unlimited) time to create slow media that people actually want to listen to. Not all people, of course, but enough. Not media for the masses, but media for the weird, for people who care. It might not be obvious media, or easy to understand media, or easily digested media, but that's okay, because slow media is not mass media. Slow media is not for the distracted masses, it's for the focused few.

via sethgodin.typepad.com

These days, we're all in a rush.

Everyone's spread too thin. Deadlines are too close together. We schedule everything, even chats with our children.

Yes, there are many strategies to help you to write fast. However, you can take time with your writing, as Seth points out.

New Novelist? Great Advice

Think of writing first person. The use of “I,” “me,” “we” and “us” become the terms used in this point of view. It instantly feels more personal. By using “I” and looking at emotions and situations in first person, you are right inside that character’s mind. You feel what they feel, see what they see, hear what they hear, and smell what they smell.

via sassy3421.blogspot.com.au

If you're writing your first novel, try the first person.

Rewrite a couple of scenes in the first person; it will make a difference.

I write character journals, which help me to get in touch with each character. Many writers balk at this "extra" work however. :-)

Beginning Copywriting: Get the Best Writing Jobs

* Discover the THREE lucrative types of copy YOU can write, even if you have zero copywriting training;

* Discover how to get clients FAST;

* Revealed: three secrets of setting up your new copywriting business.

via www.fabfreelancewriting.com

If you're looking for better writing gigs, consider copywriting.

Writing on Your iPad: Apps

Writing Kit

This app allows you to link your Dropbox account for syncing to multiple devices, but there’s no iCloud support. It can also export Markdown or HTML files, so that’s more end-to-end solution compared with other writing apps.

Writing Kit comes with a “Quick Research” tool, a search engine built into the app that gives you a quick way to look up facts or perform calculations.

via www.mwdd.com

I'm a sucker for articles on iPad writing apps. The above article gives you a few to try out.

Writing Kit's excellent.