The Word Cloud

There comes a time in every writer’s life when, whether we like it or not, we are offered advice. For me the difference between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ has little to do with the advice, or suggestion, itself. Instead whether the advice is good or bad, depends entirely on how I perceive it and how I am able to deal with it. I suppose, also, that this may philosophically translate into every day life? Hmmm, maybe. But let’s stick to books for today. ;-)

So how do I decide what is ‘good’ advice and what is ‘bad’ advice, which advice do I take onboard, and which do I cast over the side?

You’ve finished your novel, typed the last words ‘The End’ and have decided it needs a read. You are effectively at stage 4 of how I would prepare a manuscript (see link to that blog here).  You pick a range of people, maybe 4-6, a mixture of ages and sex, and perhaps some who are within your target audience and some who may not be. You then pass them a copy. Sure enough, after time, they come back with ideas, suggestions and opinions. What to do now?

I have several methods that I use to help me choose between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ advice – and here they are:

1.  Did I already know it?

This sounds really obvious but, a lot of times when I receive advice I nod my head, slap my palm off my forehead and purse my lips, because the advice rings completely true and, you know what, I blimin well knew it as well. This is ‘good’ advice. This is the advice that has helped you to make a decision on something that you, consciously or unconsciously, already knew was a problem. Take it and play with the changes. And remember who gave you the good advice, as they may well be able to give you more.

2.  I didn’t know it, but I can see straight away that they’re right.

This is definitely what I would consider to be ‘good’ advice, when as soon as the point is raised I can see what they mean, the problem becomes obvious to me, and I nod my head and concede.  Any advice that you can ‘see’ and understand, is, in my opinion, good advice. Take it and make the changes.

3.  Have they ganged up on you or are they going it alone?

There is nothing worse than when someone tells you something is wrong and you just cannot ‘see’ the problem. This, for me, is the definition of ‘bad’ advice. Maybe it’s a character that they say is 2 dimensional and dull, but I can’t see it at all. To me the character is as real as my mum, not to mention, funny, charismatic and numbers among my top 5 best friends. There could be no character more real, crikey, it was that character that wrote the book, channelling their thoughts through me… etc etc.

to continue reading, and to make comments, please follow the link to http://mightyjock.co.uk/advice-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly-truth

Ever since I joined the cloud the concept of POV has caused me a lot of torment.  Even though I have listened and followed the advice clouders give on this, I still find myself reading published books that do not follow the rules...  So, in plain english - pretend I'm a child - can someone explain the different types of writing narrative, i.e. 1st, 2nd and 3rd.  And if possible, let me know what the popular one is.

I get the impression 1st is in for YA novels.  Then again, it depends on the story.  I have read some YA novels written in 2nd (I think).  And Harry Potter is written in 3rd - am i right?

To put it in context...I prefer to write from a female POV, but at times I want to slot in the male POV.  How do I do this, without having to switch all the time?  How can I do this smoothly?  I am just working on a brand new novel, and I want to get it straight in my head before I get sucked in and then have to edit a lot!

Thanks a lot for you help... it's really appreciated.

How many people who writing amateur or authors used listening program? and find helpful?

I am wonder whether it would helpful but down falling it would have to free and I know best ones cost money.

I am think if I do manage download one, it going difficult to used or is where I type and the program reading what I type.

Usual I am OK said under breath or in my head because sound right but when read aloud I am un sure if a complete or right sentence. It sound really weird but I don't know how else to explain it.  It like the words have change when said it loud and spill in the air.  I know they have not change but get sometime I get confused when speak aloud with what words said.  I can have conversation with anyone about any thing. It when come to words and knowing how to explain or get my point across. It like get all mixed up and turn out alright or not what I want.

http://zoolane2.wordpress.com/

Hello everyone, as some of you may have noticed, I've been a tad absent. I recently finished a month in London, doing a Publishing internship at a Literary Agency. It was fab!

I stayed in King's College Halls and aside from a lonely, homesick first few days and extremely noisy italians cooking at 3am, it was brilliant.

Commuting was easy as pie, they reimbursed my Oyster card and I can hold my hand up and admit that London is not as I thought. I used to hate the fast pace, rude people and the tube, but now the City is beautiful and the tube is pure genius!

On my first day, I felt nervous but was soon made to feel at home. They were the nicest group of people I have ever come across. They welcomed me and answered all of my irritating questions. We had tea and cake and I was surrounded by books in a beautiful old building - heaven!

Obviously it took some getting used to, I missed my family and friends and had to amuse myself, but I soon got accustomed to the free time and made a little routine for myself. I saw where Black Books and Sherlock were filmed and went to the Natural History Museum to see Dinosaurs and a Blue Whale!

The main points for this blog are to give people little snippets of advice that I have picked up. I always thought  that *SOME* Agents were cold bastards who didn't make the effort to read hard working author's submissions. I still believe there are people like this out there, but it was invaluable being on the other side of the process.

It also gave me inspiration to explore other genres, (I'm now trying to read historical fiction and chicklit!) as well as writing some too!

In the beginning it was fascinating, working through the slushpile was a real experience, however after the first few days, I got a bit fed up.

Here are Alice's simple top ten tips for not annoying the person who reads your submissions and possibly standing a chance:

1) Use decent quality paper, black ink and clear presentation. Make it neat and succcinct. Think of it like a CV, people want the basic facts. Bish bash bosh. Take pride in it!
2) ALWAYS include a large, addressed, postage paid envelope. This not only returns your MS but means we don't have to write out an email/letter, to ask if you want it back.
3) Research who will receive your MS. I HATE "Dear Sir/Madam." Also research the genres that the agency accept. Why bother sending me a crime novel if we specifically state that we don't accept crime?
4) State whether you want your MS recycled if we aren't interested. This (to me) shows respect and maturity, but that's just my opinion.
5) DON'T put in your covering letter (for God's sake make sure you have a covering letter, that goes without saying...)anything like the following:

- I have never written before.
- My friends/family/dog say it's good.
- I am three times divorced/married/have five kids/enjoying surfing.
- This has film potential
- I look forward to you representing my work (far too presumptious)

6) I don't want to see your CV. I don't care if you are University educated or took a first aid course in 1994.
7) NO promotional posters or leaflets. This is an immediate rejection.
8) I don't want samples of other work. I just want the manuscript you are sending.
9) DON'T RING UP THE NEXT DAY. Read the guidelines they provide you with and leave it for at least a month.

Finally, 10) don't give up. You wouldn't believe the fragility of the system on which submissions are based. You can be rejected for the slightest thing. I don't mean resend the same ms a week later, I mean accept it and move on. It is a fickle and difficult process, but don't beat yourself up over it. Write for the love of it, not with a huge book deal in mind. Enjoy your work and try your best.

Overall I had a fantastic experience and I hope that these tips may help you. Just take pride in your work and that will show through.

                                                                              xo

One of my chickens is being bullied, so I bought some feather pecking spray. It's similar to the stuff you put on kid's finger nails to stop them biting. When a chicken pecks the bullied bird, it tastes horrible, so they stop.
It said on the bottle 'shake vigorously before use to prevent blockages.'
I don't think there are any blockages but my hen is traumatised!
Can you help?

This is the final part of INDIE PUBLISHING FOR INTERNATIONAL WRITERS, a step-by-step guide to getting your stories into (digital) print. 

I will be compiling all these steps into a free e-book for my blog-readers when I am done. It’s called Let’s Get Digital and is penciled in for release at the end of June.

STEP TEN: WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THE SALES JUST STOP?

All self-publishers experience a dip in sales. Every single one of them. Most will also experience a run where they sell nothing at all. It happened to me three days after my second release. My sales just died. Three days after a new release!

I sold nothing in the UK for a week – of either title – and I sold nothing in the US for four days. Then it picked up again. This happens. Sometimes it’s a reporting delay by Amazon, but sometimes nobody is buying your books, and sometimes it continues.

What do you do then?

Today's blog will show you how to look at your entire presentation in a dispassionate way, and reveals the greatest promotional tool available to any writer:

http://davidgaughran.wordpress.com/2011/06/13/indie-publishing-for-international-writers-step-ten-what-happens-when-the-sales-just-stop/ 

Reading through my blogs, I no doubt believe that you all think I'm a whiny sod who's afraid of everything (and you'd be right) but yet again I need some advice.

I got a call last Wednesday, from a temp agency that i'm signed with, asking me to cover a week and a half contract with my local Airport and to meet the airport people in about half an hour. I agreed to help out, asking the details and was told that it was "basic admin."

I get there and am briefly taught the ropes by Steve, who's also a temp and has been covering the position for two weeks since it was left empty. He tells me a few details of the job and (I now know,) neglecting any real information.

So I realise quite quickly that this is not a basic admin job. I am in charge of people's security passes. I deal with all the work getting people's passes and important security details and I haven't been shown how to do any of that properly!

One day in and i've already completed all of my simple tasks and now am left with a system I don't understand. It's a serious, important job and I feel ill equipped and frustrated. I want to do a good job but feel like i'm letting people down. I was told it was a job that it wasn't and I wasn't properly trained. Yes it's good experience, but I'm afraid that I will make a huge mistake and someone won't be able to come into work for weeks because I fucked up their pass.

So I have two choices:  I can muddle through, take calls and meet with people who I can't help to the best of my ability and possibly make a huge mistake, or I can speak to a manager, tell them how badly trained i've been and how uncomfortable I am and possibly lose the job.

Whether this is of any benefit to anyone, especially those of you, like me, who attended that little shindig in the ancient citie of Yorke, who knows? 

However. Here's a few thoughts.

York was greatly encouraging to me, as a first time novelist. Pre-Festival, I'd written a masterpiece. A work of rare genius. Prizes and movie deals awaited, wantonly panting. And then -

Well, awakenings can be so rude, can't they? Seems it wasn't bad. Showed promise. Some of it sparkled.  But. It needed work, predominantly editing. It needed to breathe. It needed some protein. It. Needed. Work.

So to work we went, me and the tome. But we fell out. We fought like bitches and we ended up in different places. Primarily, this was because of one piece of advice that I heard from such luminaries that it might have come from the cosmos.  The advice centred on changing a central tenet and I blithely thought, yeah, I can do that. Er, yeah. Right.

And then I thought some more and I came to the realisation that what I was supposed to be changing wasn't necessarily what they thought I needed to change. In essence, I'd hoisted myself by my own petard, introducing the book by a clever little strapline that was achingly post-modern and delightfully intriguing, but which immediately positioned the work in a category it was never designed to be in.  Sure, in retrospect, this work of, um, genius, was horribly over-written and it's plot went from zip to plod within pages.  That was all reparable. But to change the bit I'd been told to change wasn't just going to change the book. It was going to change me, the way I write, the things I write about. And that wouldn't do at all. Naturally, I was concerned about 'the market'. But I was and am convinced that I could keep my central tenet and still appeal to the market, providing I'd listened and observed and thought about the end product more than I perhaps had during the initial writing process. In case  you're wondering, the advice was 'drop the rock and roll.'

You see, I can't write in wordy-isolation. It's never just words. It's a sensory experience, in which music (and sometimes art and sometimes film) plays such an important part in setting the tone, creating the mood, that it has to come through in the writing. Heck, I'm so hopeless I even create Playlists that form part of the book, even though they're rarely designed to make prominent, or even apparent, appearances. So this week, I've gone back to the playlists. Back to the, for want of a better generic expression, rock and roll. All with a mind to lose some of it, to pare it back, to make it work for me, rather than to dwell within it, but back to the music. And now it's the book that's singing again, banging out power chords of words and melodic paragraphs that are rooted in, but often different from, the initial version. And I do believe it's working, remaining true to myself and my work whilst taking on board the generous, impeccable advice I've been given.

It's tough going, but a light's shining brightly at the end of the tunnel. (Three months ago, that light would have been a  laser glaring through the dry ice spectacle, so the rock's definitely been knocked back ;-) ). Less Spinal Tap, more backbone.

Anyway. The point of this ramble is really to say when you get advice about your writing from people you trust and respect, and it isn't necessarily something you want to hear, dwell on it, live with it, think about. Carefully. Don't ignore it. But don't sell out to it, either. 

Of course, in 6 months' time, I could be backtracking madly. But for now, I feel like I know what I'm doing again. And it's better than I was doing pre-York.

Hey guys and girls,

I'm really struggling with the synopsis for my current novel.  I think it's too long, but even in its current form i feel i am leaving out so much of the storyline and so many threads that it almost isn't putting the book across in its entirety.

I'm gonna post it below.  I will be grateful for any feedback that you guys would offer, don't hold back as i'm not sensitive and i'd rather hear it here than somewhere else.

I should add that i have never written one before and so am trying to get across the story but not in the sense of a blurb (enticing someone to read it) but more as i would to an agent that wants to know what happens in the story.

Please also feel free to pick up grammar points etc.  I have checked it, but i've changed it so much and looked at it for so long i have kinda gone blind to it, if you know what i mean?

The novel is a YA Fantasy type and will be around 75-80k words. (i'm 50k+ done).  This is my thrid novel, but the first that i intend to try and 'market'.

many thanks

Jock

 

Cor is the future King of the united lands of Karad and Shantar.  Home to many different races these lands have seen peace, since the defeat of the Elven Dagoutaii, hundreds of years ago.  With man and Elf now living together in harmony, Prince Cor has fallen in love with an Elven maid, the daughter of Sagatus, Lord of the Elven Council.

 

With the impatience of youth the two lovers ask Sagatus to resurrect the ancient ritual of Cupla Eternatta a ceremony that shares the life force between two beings to prevent one from outliving the other. But Cor knows too little of the Cupla and Sagatus dupes him into a long quest to gather the required herbs.

 

With this act Sagatus knowingly brings the lands to the brink of war.  Dispatching the feline race of the pantharii to follow Cor, he begins to destabilise the human alliance.  With Cor far from home, Sagatus moves against the king, knowing that by the laws of the alliance, the Kings second, Rane, will take power.  But Rane is one of the brown skinned people from the south and Sagatus knows that it will take little to ignite the racial hatred of the humans.  With Sagatus pulling the strings and with the heir to the throne out of reach, he knows the world of men will begin to tear itself apart.

 

Whilst embarked on his journey meets a large dog called Karn, exiled from the pack for the alleged crimes of cowardice and treason. Tracked by the black Pantharii pride, and taking routes fraught with danger, the companions travel the length of the land, across Karn’s home on the tundra, to see a witch who may be able to help the quest for the herbs.

 

But Cor is not the only one who is being tracked.  By entering the Tundra, Karn has returned unbidden from exile and as such his life is forfeit. The Alpharii, leader of the dog pack, must hunt him to punish his return.

 

Cor, joined in his quest by a shape shifter Natasha, and understanding that there are races and beasts in the far reaches of the land that live outside of time and civilisation, reaches the witch.  Unknown to the travellers the witch knows far more about the Cupla than any other being as she was the creator, the Elf Dagout.  She sees the motive behind Sagatus’ actions and realises that the Elven Lord does not know all about the true power of the Cupla.

 

The witch agrees to help Cor as she can see that the true value is not just in the gathering of the herbs, but in the experience gained by Cor and the possibility that he could truly unite all the races of the land. She directs Cor upon a path that leads him to the herbs and into contact with the beings that inhabit the most isolated parts of the land. 

Sagatus, learning of Cor’s new alliances, orders the pantharii to kill the prince.  The great cats track him onto the Tundra and begin their attack, unknowing that the dog pack has also found the travellers.

 

To protect Cor, his companions Karn and Natasha charge to meet the fearsome Pantharii pride.  The Alpharii sees Karn facing the pantharii in battle and knows that the charges of cowardice were false.  The pack charge to the aid of Karn and a bloody battle follows which sees the first blow struck against Sagatus.

 

But Sagatus is old and wise and his plans will not be upset by a single loss and an upstart prince, lost in the wilderness.

What a splendid day it was on Saturday at the Getting Published Day.  Met lots of very interesting people and had so much information thrown at me I'm going to have to take a few days to digest it all.  All the speakers spoke from different angles and it was fascinating to learn more about publishing generally and all the problems ahead.

The book doctors were wonderful and I now have so much to think about I'm going to have to pause for a second to consider my next move with the current project. I have to admit to being in a state of confusion when I arrived home, rather soggy, on Saturday night;  my overuse of certain aspects of grammer, to which I had been oblivious, became  clear;  I need to start chapter one again from further back in time but I need to complete the first draft - first.  That in itself is presenting a problem as I struggle with the current chapters while thinking about re-starting the beginning, if that makes sense! 

 I really need to assimilate all the information I've received before I start work again and although the comments were not a surprise it takes an expert (Debi) to point out all the obvious mistakes I have been blind too.  It made me realise I have a very long way to go before any of the relevant information re 'Getting Published' will be needed and although I felt completely knackered yesterday I am feeling positive this morning and already have some ideas about how to progress in my head and I will be looking at my own writing from a very different POV in future.  Thanks Debi!