Blogging In Black: E-Publishing or Bust

Blogging In Black: E-Publishing or Bust

Believe in Yourself, a poem

Believe in Yourself
By Ali Marsman

I AM BEAUTIFUL

I will no longer believe you as I have before,

I AM DESERVING

What you said doesn't matter to me anymore,

I AM STRONG

You will no longer bring me down,

I WILL HEAL

Because of the greatness in me I've found,

I WILL SUCCEED

at what I want that is best for me,

I AM ELATED

Because of the fine things in me I see,

I AM OUTSTANDING

It shows in everything I have done,

I DO BELIEVE

In myself, this means I've won,

I AM INTELLIGENT

Because of what I now believe

I AM WONDERFUL

It doesn't matter anymore what you see,

I AM LOVABLE

I don't need to hear this from you,

MY FEELINGS COUNT

Along with everything else I've been through,

I Am Beautiful, I Am Elated, I Am Intelligent,

I Am Deserving, I Am Lovable, I Am Wonderful,

I Will Succeed, I Am Outstanding, I Do Believe,

My Feelings Count AND I Am Strong!

all the things I allowed you to put in my head,

were so very wrong.

'96


Ali Marsman was born in 1978, she grew up and spent twenty-five years living in Nova Scotia and now lives in British Columbia.

Her first books, 'Heal With Me' and 'Our Journey Goes On' sent her on a journey throughout Canada presenting motivational workshops and speeches, in schools, group homes, shelters and within various other organizations and societies.

Stop by her website for more of her lovely poems.
http://alimarsman.com/default.aspx

Editing Tips

Meet Carlos Cartes: “I write for the same reason I breathe: to carry on living.”

He’s the moderator of “On Fiction Writing” group on goodreads.com. “We seek to debate how we research, structure, plot, draft, edit, write, and rewrite our novels.” It's a public group; anyone can join. Fair warning, however, it’s not a showcase or an arena to promote your personal works.

Carlos J Cortes is the author of numerous unpublished novels and one of the World’s least influential people (his words, not mine). His first SF thriller, Perfect Circle, was published in 2008. The second, The Prisoner, another SF thriller, is scheduled for release 29 September 2009, both courtesy of Random House. He presently lives in Barcelona, Spain.

I asked permission to share his notes because they hit me square in the middle of my brain.

# # # # #

Imagine that after no end of poring over the ghastly dribble we try to palm as prose, we reach the wishful—and often irrational—conclusion that our work is readable.

We must now strive to revise the text with discipline. It’s almost impossible for most of us to do the mental juggling needed to review a text looking for flaws under seventeen separate headings. Hence, I propose a sensible approach: read-as-we-look-for-a-single-flaw.

Repeat after me: “Adverbs are a curse, my writing is cursed and it must be exorcised.” Repeat it ad nauseam, like a mantra. If you feel giddy, stop. The first step must be to identify the rascals and bring them up into the open.

To do this, advance as follows:

You need the “find” tool in MS Word, on the “edit” menu.

On the “find” window, type ly (no spaces at either side). Click on ‘Highlight all items’. The text will move and a little color window will appear on any word containing ‘ly’. Look for the words ending in ‘ly.’Check that it’s an adverb (it can be an adjective or a noun). If it is, click on the highlight tool, on your toolbar at the top of the screen.

When you finish, the text will have a dose of chickenpox.

Now that you have identified the fiends don’t do anything. Don’t plunge headlong on to a search and destroy sortie. Most of those adverbs have a short life, but they don’t know it yet.

Settle down, relax, bunch your toes a few times and then wiggle them a bit.

Browse through your text; look for masses of unbroken text and for bordering paragraphs of similar length. If you detect some of these visual problems, read the offending passages and try to break the large items into smaller and reshape similar paragraphs to add variety. They say variety is the spice of life. It certainly is of literature.

Have you done? Excellent! Repeat the toe bunching and wiggling, it shakes up dormant neurons.

Now read with an eye to the first word of each paragraph. Any echoes? Obvious repetitions? Repair.

Read again. Check the first word of each sentence. Any echoes? Obvious repetitions? Repair.

The toe routine is essential in-between each read. If at the same time you manage a smile, the effect is doubled. If, by any chance you suffer a flitting pang of self-consciousness and realize, deep down, that you’re being silly with all that toe bunching, then the effect increases tenfold.

With every reading the offending adverbs must have stuck up like sore thumbs, you couldn’t help glancing at them and their colorful livery. From now on, without undue zeal, when they least expect it, pounce over one and delete it or replace with another turn of phrase or a stronger verb.

Read the text again, perhaps over a cup of tea, and check only the POV, nothing else matters. (You can massacre an adverb or two, just for the hell of it).

Return to the top of the page, scene, chapter or manuscript and examine sentence structure. Check each sentence, weigh it, chew it a bit as you would olives (or cherries if you don’t like olives). If you find a pit (unnecessary adjective, dangling modifier, silly conjunction, sillier noun or even sillier determiner) spit it out. Check for passive constructions and fragments (these are not problems if used with measure), but keep your eye open, they have gregarious tendencies and can ruin a paragraph. Repair.

Hit the beginning of the manuscript a few more times. Look for weak verbs, flocks of pronouns, gaggles of conjunctions and the like. Repair.

Start again with an eye for names. Try to distinguish the names of your characters by length and initial. Don’t use two similar sounding names. (“Come here, Joe”, said Jim. Jon glanced at Jan and frowned.) Strive for variety.

Now tackle dialogue. Take a passage at a time. Read it aloud. Does it sound silly? It is. Does the brave heroine sounds inane? She is. Does the burly macho captain sounds limp-wristed? He is.

While you’re at it, check the tags. Any time you come across “Come here, buster,” she hissed. You try to hiss it, if possible in front of a mirror. (The same applies with ‘growled, barked, wheezed’ and the like). When you collect your wits and stop laughing, rewrite the offending tag without forgetting the toe bunching and wiggling.

Repeat the procedure with stage directions. Don’t forget that some lines (“This is silly,” Peter said scratching his crotch. “Yes it is,” Lynne said scratching her underarm.), are only acceptable if you’re writing ‘The Itch’.

Next in line is punctuation. Divide the task into two parts: story punctuation and dialogue punctuation. Read slowly, check for non-existent periods, punctuation outside quotes and the plethora of places where the damn things play hide-and-seek. From time to time, ambush an unsuspecting adverb and clobber it.

After you complete this process, the color-clad bandits will be in frank retreat, decimated beyond recognition. Check on those that have resisted previous onslaughts. You may want to spare the lives of these adverbs for effect. Relax and bunch your toes.

To remove the offending colored marks, select the whole document, then click on the highlighting tool and select ‘none’ or ‘no color’, depending on the version of your word processor.

After this process is completed let the text (and your toes) rest for a week. Then read again, as you would a book from a library shelf.

Now you have a pseudo-polished manuscript and it should go to your trusted readers.

The dear unpaid people will detect flaws in continuity, pace, structure, plot and subjective issues. They will labor like beavers and burn the midnight oil to point out the silly things we've left behind. What? You have no such readers? Mmmmm... you must secure the complicity of decent readers. We need ‘others’. Others will detect things that we cannot. It’s a question of perspective. A book doctor? Forsooth! That’s a last-ditch solution, like hitting a psychologist when you run out of friends. I’ve suspected for a long time that behind every good writer there lurks a body of tip-top readers. I insist. Get a cadre of harsh readers and you’re halfway there.

Once you get your reader’s reviews and corrections, implement these that in your opinion have merit and ignore the rest.

Now you can format the manuscript, light a candle to St. Dimas (patron saint of lost causes), another to St. Marie Magdalene (benefactor of repentant hookers), and send it off for a round of rejection slips.

When you collect a baker’s dozen, start again.

No rejections? Then open the bubbly and laugh yourself silly with much toe bunching and wriggling.


You can learn more about Carlos at:
http://www.carlosjcortes.com
http://carlos-odd-world.blogspot.com/
http://cortes-theprisoner.blogspot.com/
http://cortes-perfectcircle.blogspot.com...

Happy writing!

Minnie Estelle Miller
Marvelously Mature Author and Essayist

About Queries & Paperback Books

No Response To Your Queries?

Some say you may get one response out of one hundred queries and, most importantly, your quires should be different and fresh--no templates. I know, that’s hard.

Don’t be discouraged. Today’s financial times are hard for every business. If international, mega-companies as AIG, GM and financial institutions are falling on hard times; publishing houses have to feel the loss of profits as well. IMO, they will be less skittish in a couple of years – hopefully by 2011. No, I don’t have a crystal ball, just following trends.

Do your research while idling, I’d go directly to the publisher’s web site and learn their guidelines. They usually list their clients, which will lead you to their books, and the acknowledgment page usually mentions the agent. Most agents know where to shop your story. Research further by going online with the book title and read the product description. Does it sound like where you want to take your story? If the feeling is good, then you’ve found your genre and publishing community. Again, this is not set in stone but offers yet another path to knowledge.

Ride out this recession by continuing to write and put your MSS in a file so when that door opens, you’ll burst through with not one, but several manuscripts.

A side note, I have self-published two books and have two additional MSS that may be out next year.

# # # #

Differences In Paperback books

Check the following link for the source of this information.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/16/books/review/paperrow-t.html

BROWSING BOOKS
Paperback Row
By Elsa Dixler
Published: March 16, 2008

Using Elsa Dixler’s comparisons, he states, “I have before me two copies of ‘Atonement.’ The cover of the trade version published in February 2003 is black and white. It shows a child seated on stone steps, calling to mind the Tallis family’s country house and their younger daughter, Briony, who sets the plot in motion."

Dixler continues, “Employing my ruler, the trade fiction dimensions are 7.9 by 5.2 by 0.9 inches. It sells for $14.95. The trade book’s cover is arty and evokes the atmosphere of the book. It’s both taller and wider. And finally, the trade book is considerably more expensive. Trade paperbacks may be originals, which are not preceded by a hardcover edition, or reprints of hardcover.

“The mass-market version measures 6.8 by 4.2 by 1.2 inches, and cost $7.99. The cover appeals to someone coming to the book from the movie. Mass-market books are designed to fit into the racks set near the checkout counter at supermarkets, drugstores, hospital gift shops and airport newsstands. They are priced affordably so they can be bought on impulse.”

Following is a partial list of publishers of paperback trade fiction (more expensive)
Martin’s Griffin
Berkley
Vintage
Dial
Washington Square
Random House
Quirk
Penguin.


And partial list publishers of paperback mass-market fiction (the cheaper book)
Pocket
Jove
St Martin’s
Avon/HarperCollins
Ace
Signet
Pocket Star
Grand Central.


Of course, this list is not all-inclusive.

Happy writing!

Minnie Estelle Miller, Author

"The art of writing is the art of discovering what you believe."
— Gustave Flaubert

The Seduction of Mr. Bradley is still available.

www.millerscribs.com
www.msprissy-dreamweaver.blogspot.com/
www.shelfari.com/estelle4700
http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/865951

Copyright © by Minnie Estelle Miller July 2009

On Agents

As a writer, I have questions and personal beliefs regarding the use of an agent to shop my manuscript.

I have read Dr. Linda F. Beed’s article on SORMAG blog, “Purposely Said,” July 14, 2009. The issue being what you look for in an agent or what you want the function of this literary professional to be.

Dr. Beed said, “Depending upon the client/representative relationship, negotiations can extend to the securing of public appearances and collaborations on other projects.”

I was not aware of this broad representation.

The agent’s list of “typical agent services” is undertaken before receiving an income from the writer. I believe they deserve an advance for performing these services while waiting for a publisher to accept my MS. Probably not a popular idea, I’m sure. These are time-consuming activities and I understand that agents don’t receive pay for their services until the MS is accepted by a publishing house.

In Deatri King-Bey’s conference on “Unrealistic Expectations,” speaking of author royalties and agent fees, Tee C. Royal of RAWSISTZ offered, “for a lot of contracts, the author’s advance is broken up into 3 or 4 installments, some of which may be a year (or longer), they won’t see that 2nd part of the advance until that time.”

Ms. Royal continued, “Don’t even get me to talking about unexpectations as far as agents go and how some authors think agents don’t deserve 15% commissions. For those who feel this way...read above and note how often the author gets paid, which equates to how (and when) the agent gets a commission, no matter how much work they’re doing on your behalf throughout the year.”

I can see paying for agent services on a contractual and time limit basis. There I go again with my unpopular thoughts and I’m not even an agent. I am a writer. Period.

Dr. Beed said, “Because the agent is commission-based they will work diligently to secure the best contract.” I’m uncomfortable with that thought. I would rather they go beyond the usual PR connections, than be bribed (perhaps too harsh a word), maybe tempted, with a carrot to hustle harder.

One reason why I would think twice about hiring an agent is as Dr. Beed said, “avenues for submissions are not as hard to find as they once were.” The Internet is a wonderful avenue for writers. Yet and still, “The majority of the larger publishing houses only accept agented-manuscripts.” Yet another bump in the road when trying to get your work published.

Given the above, I would write a contract stating what I want from a professional agent. Perhaps they could work on other projects on my behalf. I have special needs, am unable to run all over having book signings that only produce limited income with my limited income. I need an agent to design a program for me as an aging author, to keep me before the public for at least a month in one or two big news media and to list my book in online bookstores. I’ll work a blog and a myspace account to coincide with a press release. When you think about it, adding the costs of 2 round-trip airfares and stay at 2 hotels together, you could purchase a nice ad in a local newspaper that will reach far more readers than a table at a book conference.

I wonder how Dorothy West’s agent handled her when she wrote her last novel in her nineties.

There I go again with my unrealistic expectations. I’m a long way (well...almost) from Ms. West’s writing ability. But I still have needs.

Minnie Estelle Miller
Marvelously Mature Author and Essayist
www.millerscribs.com
Copyright © July 15, 2009

Our Michael Jackson

Michael Jackson transitioned June 25, 2009.
He was one of the world’s greatest entertainers. I loved watching him dance; his executions were flawless. He has left an enormous legacy in music and videos that will always be with us.
Yet Michael never grew up. He was a child at heart. That, IMO, was both a blessing and a curse.

My condolences to the children of Michael and to the Jackson family.



Minnie Estelle Miller
Marvelously Mature Author and Essayist

The Seduction of Mr. Bradley is still available.

www.millerscribs.com

Fight Hate

Lately, I feel my immediate job is to read the tea leaves about America because President Obama is the target of all sorts of hate attacks. I am not forgetting my career goal to write, but much fiction imitates life and should be included as well as debated in our fiction. Therefore, I will often pass on information that some might feel "not their concern." I beg to differ with that attitude. What happens in America is our concern--we are citizens of these states.

That said, I offer the following.

Op-Ed Columnist

The Big Hate

By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: June 11, 2009

Back in April, there was a huge fuss over an internal report by the Department of Homeland Security warning that current conditions resemble those in the early 1990s —a time marked by an upsurge of right-wing extremism that culminated in the Oklahoma City bombing.

Conservatives were outraged. The chairman of the Republican National Committee denounced the report as an attempt to “segment out conservatives in this country who have a different philosophy or view from this administration” and label them as terrorists.

But with the murder of Dr. George Tiller by an anti-abortion fanatic, closely followed by a shooting by a white supremacist at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the analysis looks prescient.

There is, however, one important thing that the D.H.S. report didn’t say: Today, as in the early years of the Clinton administration but to an even greater extent, right-wing extremism is being systematically fed by the conservative media and political establishment.

Now, for the most part, the likes of Fox News and the R.N.C. haven’t directly incited violence, despite Bill O’Reilly’s declarations that “some” called Dr. Tiller “Tiller the Baby Killer,” that he had “blood on his hands,” and that he was a “guy operating a death mill.” But they have gone out of their way to provide a platform for conspiracy theories and apocalyptic rhetoric, just as they did the last time a Democrat held the White House.

What will the consequences be? Nobody knows, of course, although the analysts at Homeland Security fretted that things may turn out even worse than in the 1990s — that thanks, in part, to the election of an African-American president, “the threat posed by lone wolves and small terrorist cells is more pronounced than in past years.”

And that’s a threat to take seriously. Yes, the worst terrorist attack in our history was perpetrated by a foreign conspiracy. But the second worst, the Oklahoma City bombing, was perpetrated by an all-American lunatic. Politicians and media organizations wind up such people at their, and our, peril.

Read the entire essay at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/12/opinion/12krugman.html?_r=1


Minnie Estelle Miller

Marvelously Mature Author and Essayist
The Seduction of Mr. Bradley is still available.
www.millerscribs.com
www.msprissy-dreamweaver.blogspot.com/
www.shelfari.com/estelle4700
http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/865951

"The art of writing is the art of discovering what you believe."
— Gustave Flaubert