Twitterific Writing Links

Twitterific

Bluebird with beak open and 'Twitterific Writing Links' by ElizabethSCraig superimposed on the image

by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig

Twitterific writing links are fed into the Writer’s Knowledge Base search engine (developed by writer and software engineer Mike Fleming) which has over 50,000 free articles on writing related topics. It’s the search engine for writers.

Have you visited the WKB lately?  Check out the new redesign where you can browse by category, and sign up for free writing articles, on topics you choose, delivered to your email inbox!  Sign up for the Hiveword newsletter here.

New Stuff:

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Business / Miscellaneous

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A Resource for School Visits

Promo Tips, Uncategorized

by Hank Quense, @hanque99 

What can be more satisfying for an author than showing kids how to create a short story?  That’s what I’ve been doing for the last several years in schools and libraries. I think it’s a lot of fun. And now I’ve expanded that experience into a new book called Fiction Writing Workshop for Kids.

By way of background, a few years ago the Valley Middle School in Oakland, NJ asked if I would visit the school and talk to their seventh graders.  On visits like this, authors usually talk about their books and read scenes from them.  I hate reading scenes!  I find it boring and I’m sure I bore the audience with my monotonous voice.  Instead of torturing the kids this way, I decided to show them how I go about creating a short story.  The slide talk worked like this: I gave them the overall story idea, one that they would want to write.  After that, I used a handout with a series of text boxes with questions to have the kids come up with ideas on characters, setting and plot.  Finally, I broke the story up into six scenes and showed the kids how to use the text box ideas to write each scene.  The talk was wildly successful.

Besides the Valley Middle School, I’ve given this talk in other schools and libraries and I’ve expanded the concept to include two more story ideas.

While I love doing this, my talks are geographically limited.  To remove this limitation, I used these three talks as the basis for the ebook called Fiction Writing Workshop for Kids..  Using the advanced technical capabilities of ebooks, the book has graphics as well as audio and video clips embedded into it.  The videos show the text boxes and coach the kids on how to develop ideas  for the basic story elements: characters, setting and plot.  Each story has a final video clip showing the kids which text boxes to use in each scene.                          Continue reading

How I Work

Motivation and the Writing Life, Uncategorized

by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig

I’m a fan of a series that Lifehacker is running: “How I Work.”  In it, various people in different industries describe how they got where they are, what a typical day looks like, and tips/hacks for how they handle their workload.

Every time I go through my blog feed reader, I always stop to read posts where writers describe what a typical day looks like for them.  It fascinates me, although I don’t think I ever adopt what they’re doing, because I know what works for me.

I thought I’d do my own version, edited for space (theirs has lots of helpful details). Keeping their series in mind, here’s my take on it. After writing it out, mine looks a bit repetitive, long, and not as interesting! I think that’s because I’m doing this all day long and not part of a day like some are.

A workday in March: 

Got up( 4:45)  put workout clothes on, came downstairs, took dog out and fed him, fixed coffee and sat down in front of laptop.

Worked on Edit to Death (1st draft) until reached word goal.

Worked on Checked Out (edits) for 30 minutes

Scheduled several time-sensitive tweets relating to publishing news for the day.

Shared my blog post on Facebook and scheduled a Twitter share.

Quickly checked emails and found that there was a problem with Babelcube’s paperback edition to Amazon (actually 2 separate German translations).  Marked on my list to address it later that day.

Had breakfast with my daughter before she headed to the high school.

Went to the gym for a 25 minute workout.

Came back. Responded to comments.

Saw my husband off to work.

Emailed my cover designer about another Babelcube project that is ready to publish: an Italian edition. Asked her if she could squeeze in an altered cover for the translation.

Responded to emails and used my canned response feature for a few requests regarding the blog. Continue reading

Twitterific Writing Links

Twitterific

Bluebird with beak open and 'Twitterific Writing Links' by ElizabethSCraig superimposed on the image

by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig

Twitterific writing links are fed into the Writer’s Knowledge Base search engine (developed by writer and software engineer Mike Fleming) which has over 50,000 free articles on writing related topics. It’s the search engine for writers.

Have you visited the WKB lately?  Check out the new redesign where you can browse by category, and sign up for free writing articles, on topics you choose, delivered to your email inbox!  Sign up for the Hiveword newsletter here.

I had two books release last Tuesday.  :)  Checked Out and Edit to Death are now available!

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The Importance of Keeping a Book Inventory

Business of Writing

by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig

Fortunately, the olden days of being a self-published writer are over.  Those days involved keeping large quantities of paperback novels in your garage or closet or even carrying them in the trunk of your car as John Grisham famously did for his first book (he had a small publisher instead of self-publishing…but the distribution wasn’t there).

Today, it’s all about POD, print on demand.  Amazon’s KDP Print (formerly CreateSpace) and IngramSpark wait until there’s an order from a reader to print a book.  No inventory or storage required.

Because it’s so easy, it’s also easy for me to get very absent-minded about my own personal inventory.Continue reading

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