Angela Booth's Writing Blog

Journaling Is For Everyone: 3 Tips To Create More And Sell More

“Journaling? I don’t have time to journal”

Somerset Maugham is one of my favorite authors. He kept writing journals all his life. (If you get a chance, read his book, A Writer’s Notebook, which is based on his journals.)

Maugham traveled, and journaled, then wrote novels and short stories inspired by his travels and journaling.

Some writing quotes from the inimitable Mr Maugham…

• The best style is the style you don’t notice.
• I write only when inspiration strikes. Fortunately it strikes every morning at nine o’clock sharp.
• If you can tell stories, create characters, devise incidents, and have sincerity and passion, it doesn’t matter a damn how you write.
• To write simply is as difficult as to be good.

Let’s look at how journaling helps you to create more and sell more.

via www.angelabooth.com

Instagram Marketing: Write an Instagram Bio

Tip #1: Make the most of your limited space, and drive people to take an action from your Instagram bio

You get 150 characters to use in your Instagram bio. It’s important that you make the most of it!

One common way that we see brands do this is by focusing the bio on a single action that they want the visitor to take. It’s reminiscent of some of our favorite email marketing advice: that a good email should have one job to do — for instance, getting clicks to a pricing page or driving traffic to a blog. 

You can think of your bio in the same way. The quickest and clearest way to drive action from your bio is — quite simply — use a verb. It can be “share this” or “shop that” or anything action-oriented.

via buffer.com

Writers and authors are discovering Instagram -- remember to create your bio.

Use Trello? Templates Make Things Easier

Where Can You Access Trello Templates? 

The jaw-dropping boards from our community inspired us to create a place in Trello where all users can share their workflows with one another. 

To celebrate the launch of Trello templates, we’re psyched to bring you a brand new Trello template gallery! 

The gallery is a curated group of templates submitted by our community of Trello users. These templates showcase some of the best examples on the internet of how to use Trello to accomplish small milestones and big goals—as well as motivate your team to work productively and collaboratively. 

Whether you’re logged in or not, you can access the template gallery. The best part? With just a few clicks, you can copy and immediately start using these powerful templates!

via blog.trello.com

Sell More Books With The Two-Minute Rule

The Two-Minute rule can break our inertia. So, instead of thinking:

• Five minutes isn’t enough time to promote my book;
• What’s ten minutes? It’s not enough time to write a scene in my novel…
• Only half an hour? It’s not enough time to (fill in the blank)…

No more excuses: use your minutes

Let’s look at some ways you can use your precious minutes.

via www.angelabooth.com

Maybe you have more time than you think.

24 Google Docs Templates: Get More Done

Get started on your to-do list right away while easily being able to see each task’s due date, priority and status. It’s basic, but does the job, allowing you to get on with crossing things off that list, rather than spending time creating it. If you want a simple Google Docs to-do list template, this is it.

via www.makeuseof.com

Who knew that you could do so much with Google Docs?

End WordPress Confusion: Master The Dashboard

Arrange your tiles to quickly view stats and information

You can rearrange your tiles (all the stuff on your WordPress Dashboard) to put the stuff that’s important to you at the top so that you can see the things you need to quickly when you log on.

To rearrange, you just need to click on the top header bar of each tile and drag it where you want it to be. Easy peasy!

via www.everydayshessparkling.com

Why I Charge People to Get Coffee With Me

I replied to that email from the startup founder explaining that I could do what he asked, but I’d need to be paid for it. As a freelancer, I explained, it simply wasn’t viable for me to help pro bono, but if he wanted to hire me as a consultant, I’d welcome the discussion. He said he’d get back to me with a budget.

Six months later, I’m still waiting. In the meantime, I’ve become an outspoken proponent for the pick-your-brain fee.

via forge.medium.com

Blogging: You Need Trello

Trello is a ‘kanban’ style project management tool. You create a ‘board’ which can have multiple ‘lists.’ Each ‘list’ can have any number of items.

You can use these lists to store and organize your ideas. Once an idea moves past the ‘ideation’ to the ‘production’ stage, you can drag and drop it to another list.

For example, you might have four lists on a board – “Ideas, “To-Do,” “Editing” and “Published.”

You can then manage your ideas like this:

• Raw ideas go into the ‘Ideas’ list.
• Finalized ideas go into the ‘To-Do’ list.
• Once you have a draft of an idea, push it to the ‘Editing’ list.
• Once the post is live, drag it to ‘Published’.

via bloggingwizard.com

Success Tips If You're Working From Home

5. Wake Up Knowing What’s On The Agenda

Knowing what is on your to-do list before you even sit down is a great way to create and follow a schedule. This is especially important if you work in a variety of capacities, or for more than one client.

If you don’t wake up prepared, you may sit down at your desk and stare at your screen for hours, doing things, but not really doing anything at all. Don’t work aimlessly. Know what you have to get done. Create to-do lists each day, explicitly outlining what you need to accomplish and when. If you have to, mark them in order of importance so you know what you need to do first, second, third, and so on.

via themillennialbull.com

Create a monthly and a weekly schedule. It's essential for peace of mind.

NaNoWriMo Prep: Use A Bullet Journal

3. Managing Edits

Bullet journals can also help you stay on top of the editing process.

Keep notes on beta reader feedback that needs to be addressed.

When you’re self-editing, mark out any plot holes, problems that need fixing, and other areas that might be bogging you down.

Note what you can streamline or delete, or point out a scene that could be moved or reconfigured to improve the flow of the manuscript.

If you come across an issue you can’t seem to solve during the editing process, write it down in your journal and work on it. You’ll be amazed how much faster you can create solutions when you start journaling.

via www.tckpublishing.com

If you're doing NaNoWriMo this year, use a bullet journal.

You can use it at all stages of writing and it makes editing later much easier.

Are You A Nervous Aspiring Author?

Tips to kill your anxiety and become an author

Let’s look at some tips to help you to manage anxiety. You won’t remove all anxiety. Those butterflies are excitement.

1. Use a pen name if you’re concerned about your reputation, or family and friends

Worried about what people will say? Perhaps you’re writing in a genre which might cause comment from your work colleagues, or your family. It makes sense to use a pen name.

“I use a pen name now because I don’t want to talk about my writing,” one author admitted.

via peneloperedmont.com

Medium: Changes Coming For Authors

1. How long members spend reading your story.

As Medium members spend more time reading your story (“member reading time”), you will earn more.

We’ve improved our story stats page to show both your story’s daily total member reading time and its daily earnings, so that you can understand how much you are earning over time and where your earnings come from. Note that you will still be paid once per month.

When we calculate your story’s earnings, we’ll also include reading time from non-members if they become members within 30 days of reading your story. So we encourage you to share your stories widely!

via blog.medium.com

Are you publishing on Medium?

This story may affect you.

Blogging Can Change Your Life: 4 Tips For New Bloggers

The power of words for 31.7 million U.S. bloggers

Today we’re swamped by words. Everyone and his dog (literally, in many cases) has a blog. According to this post on blogging stats, 500 million blogs exist in 2019. In 2020, the USA will have 31.7 million bloggers — that’s 10% of the population.

Rather than being intimated by this, get excited. The sheer number of bloggers tells you that blogging is powerful, or millions wouldn’t be doing it.

Words can change your life.

Still hesitating? Let’s look at some tips for new bloggers.

via www.angelabooth.com

Beyond Journals: Clear Your Mind And Write

But what if you need something a bit more hardcore than journaling?

Let’s talk about “word dumping.” In case you didn’t know about it already, word dumping is very similar to freewriting, except you’re less likely to call it that in a classroom, work, or creative setting. Word dumping is simply writing anything that comes to mind, for any amount of time, without worrying about grammar, syntax, topic, or style; in essence, “mindlessly” throwing all your thoughts in the garbage. Now, don’t expect to produce gorgeous, publishable prose, but do expect it’ll help get you there. More importantly, it will clear your mind of all the weird stuff that accumulated throughout the day, free up some mental real estate, and bring you a little bit of peace.

via blog.rhodiapads.com

Try it.

Here Comes NaNoWriMo: Get Ready

1. Know what you’re writing on November 1: get your novel organized now

According to the NaNoWriMo rules, you can do all your novel’s preparation earlier, so that you can start writing on November 1. If you’re anything like me, the first few days after I start a new novel are frustrating: I spend more time on character attributes, setting, and outlining, than I do writing. So start your prep NOW.

2. Start slowly, finish strongly: build your writing muscles as you go

If you’re a newbie author, writing 1,600 words on Day 1 of NaNoWriMo can take you hours. Combine this with starting to write a new novel, and you may be tempted to give up in the first few days.

Relax. Start writing slowly. See how you feel. Over the course of the first week, you should be building a rhythm. If you only manage to write 400 words on Day 1, that’s OK. You will make it up later.

via peneloperedmont.com

It's that time of year again. If you're "doing" NaNoWriMo this year, it's time to get organized.