SiWC 2011 Day One, Part One: Don't Flinch: Robert Wiersema

I've decided to go through my experience at the writers' conference day by day, beginning on the first day, Friday.

Of course I was excited to be at the Surrey International Writers' Conference. This was my second time at the SiWC. The first time was last year and Robert Dugoni (see pic, above) sent us all off into the world with his rousing adaptation of Aragorn's speech at the Black Gate entitled: Today we WRITE!

Best. Speech. Ever.

Usually writers aren't the most demonstrative folks but we didn't just give him a standing ovation, we stamped our feet, we hooted and cheered. The speech was amazing. It was so good, in fact, it was so inspiring, that the organizers took Dugoni's speech as the theme for this year's conference.

Anyhow, that was last year, but it gives the background of our collective expectations, out thoughts. The mood of the conference.

For my first workshop I was going to attend, "The Military for Writers" by Bob Mayer but a friend mentioned "Don't Flinch" so I read the handout:

"Robert Wiersema, whose Bedtime Story is described as an exquisitely plotted blend of supernatural thriller and domestic drama, guides you though building suspense and raising the states when ANYTHING can happen."

I ask you, after reading a description like that, how could I not go?

I just looked at the time, ack! The rest of this post will have to wait till I get back from work. I want to write about the workshop and what Wiersema had to say about not flinching and tell you something about the other two courses I attended that day. Stay tuned!

The Surrey International Writers' Conference

The conference has ended and I've just settled down in front of a computer. I have one word for you: Wow! To call the conference awesome would be to slight it. It was amazing and stupendous!

This year friends and I reserved rooms at the Sheraton hotel so we could stay for late night events such as Michael Slade's Shock Theatre (the photo, above, is of Michael Slade, but it wasn't taken at the conference. I have a GREAT video for you from the conference, stay tuned ;). Saturday night we went to our rooms early, opened a bottle of wine, and talked about writing.

I want to tell you all about the great workshops I took, all the wonderful things I've leaned, but I need to unpack, do laundry, and catch up on my email. My deepest apologizes to the folks who emailed me and I haven't gotten back to you yet. I want to and I will sometime in the next couple of days.

The conference was great, but it's good to be back. :)

Using speach to text software for writing

I've tweeted about this article, but it is so good I wanted to post about it too. Here are Karen Ranney's tips for using Dragon Naturally Speaking:

Buy the best microphone you can afford. (I’m currently using a Plantronics DSP400 Foldable Multimedia Headset which is soft, comfy, lightweight, and folds up and fits in a pouch.)

Always back up your User Profile. I’ve had to restore mine twice, even with this new version of Dragon.

If you’re having a problem with Dragon recognizing your speech, and you’ve used the tools under Audio, create a new user profile. Make sure you select the available accents if they’re applicable.

Train Dragon for words that are uncommon. For example, I write both Scottish historical romance and murder mysteries, and have a varied vocabulary for each. I use the Vocabulary/Import List of Words and Phrases command, which also allows me to train Dragon.

Train Dragon for your writing style by going back and having it analyze documents you’ve already written (Vocabulary/Learn from Specific Documents.)

Dragon is a tool, one that I’ve found to be very helpful for three reasons:

I’ve never had the dreaded blank page syndrome with Dragon. I’m forced to start talking about the book and before I know it, I’m writing it. (Besides, if I remain quiet for too long it picks up the sound of my breathing.)

It also enables me to maximize time. Granted, there are places I can’t use Dragon – for example, standing in line somewhere. But there are more places where I can use it, and I take advantage of those.

Using a speech to text program forces me to know what I’m about to say/write. Dragon helps me stay on target.

And, yes, this was dictated on Dragon.

Here's a link to Karen Ranney's article as it appears on The Passive Voice blog.

Indie writers and Internet dependency

I am internet-less. I have been without Internet access for coming up on 24 hours. 

I'm sitting in a coffee shop an hour before i have to work peck-typing on my iPad. (Have I mentioned lately that I love my iPad?) 

Having had constant access to the Internet for years I was completely unprepared for ... Well, for the silence. It may seem odd, but I'm experiencing a sense of dislocation. I know that's an exaggeration, but I wasn't able to blog last night, or schedule tweets, and my personal emails lie in my inbox neglected and unsent. It is like my life is in stasis -- on hold  -- until I get my connectivity back.

An image just flashed through my head: a member severed from the Borg collective. I shudder. Surely not.

Has anyone else gone without the Internet for a significant period of time?

Edit: Problem fixed! Turns out my router was dead. Ah well.

10 ways to get more views and traffic to your blog

I found a great post over on Wordpress.com called, "Getting more views and Traffic". The author's points are what my Grams would have called common sense, but I find I occasionally need reminding.

1. Tell people in your social networks about your new post.
Dead obvious, but I don't do this. I post a link on Twitter and leave it at that.

2. Make your content visible to search engines
Fortunately, sites like Blogger and Wordpress do this if you've made your site visible to the public (look at your privacy settings if you want to check whether your site is visible).

3. Pay for traffic to your site
Apparently you can get visitors through StumbleUpon for the (I hear the deep base of the announcers voice) for the low, low, price of $0.05 per visit.

I can understand the utility of this, but the offer leaves me feeling indignant. I feel myself wanting to say: I don't pay for views!

4. Bug your real-life friends
I disagree with this one. I think it's common sense NOT to bug your real-life friends. It's easy to alienate people. You know that guy everyone pokes fun at, the one who is always trying to show his home movies? Yea, you don't want to be that guy.

My real life friends know I blog and if they want to read my posts they will. If they don't, that's okay too.

5. Use appropriate tags
Definitely a must. I've begun looking at the topics that are trending over at Twitter and mulling over whether I could do a blog post about one of those topics.

6. Read and comment on other blogs
Excellent idea, and something I do. Or try to do. It nelps grow your blog, but I've also met some mighty nice people that way.

7. Link to other blogs
I do this, but should do it more. It would be a good idea to put up a 'Best Of The Writing Blogs' list and include those blogs I read every day, the blogs I use as touchstones, that help encourage me and anchor me.

8. Let people know about your blog entries
Once I wrote a blog post that was inspired by a conversation I'd had with someone I had just met on Twitter. I tweeted him about the post I'd made. It worked out well, he posted a comment and retweeted my link to the article, but -- obviously -- one needs to be careful when doing this, I could see this going horribly wrong. Stephen King wrong.

9. Relax, it takes time
True, very true, but I want results NOW, dagmabbit!

10. Size doesn't matter
This is what the original blog post said: "Finally, remember that it's not the size of your audience, it's how much you care about them and they care about you."

I'm trying to think of a tactful way of putting this.

Nope, just cant.

If you're trying to sell your books and, hopefully, sell enough to to allow you to quit your day job, it is about the numbers. That's not to say that I don't get a special thrill when someone tells me they read my book, and I am humbly grateful to all those wonderful folks who reviewed my book, but for anyone who is hoping to use their blog to help them sell books, the size of their platform does matter.


A good 10 points, even if I didn't agree with all of them. Besides, if we agreed with one another all time, time wouldn't life be boring?

Here is a link to the original article: Getting More Views and Traffic

Making a Vlog

For months I have been thinking about making a vlog post. What prevented me? I had absolutely no idea how to go about it. I knew I had to have some sort of camera and I had to get the footage onto a website, but that was the extent of my hazy idea. I've found out a bit more, thanks to a few vlogs I discovered, and I thought you good folks might be interested.

First, a video by Myles Dyer who has been video blogging since 2006.

Second, a video Hank Green: How to Vlog: From the Vlogbrothers.

Looks simple? I thought so, until I watched Hank Green's video on how his "How to Vlog" video was edited descriptively entitled: An Hour of Me Editing a Vlog. He also put up a copy of the script he used here: As Part of a Project.

I've used my iPad to shoot some video of me rambling about something or other and I'm currently editing it using Adobe Premiere Elements 9. I'll put up the grainy footage on YouTube when it's ready and you all can chuckle. ;)

btw, found an interesting article on the top five vlogs: The Top 5 YouTube Vloggers And Why People Love Them.

Cheers!

Seth Godin: Open conversations

A guy walks into a shop that sells ties. He's opened the conversation by walking in.

Salesman says, "can I help you?"

The conversation is now closed. The prospect can politely say, "no thanks, just looking."

Consider the alternative: "That's a [insert adjective here] tie you're wearing, sir. Where did you buy it?"

Conversation is now open. Attention has been paid, a rapport can be built. They can talk about ties. And good taste.

Or consider a patron at a fancy restaurant. He was served an old piece of fish, something hardly worth the place's reputation. On the way out, he says to the chef,

"It must be hard to get great fish on Mondays. I'm afraid the filet I was served had turned."

If the chef says, "I'm sorry you didn't enjoy your meal..." then the conversation is over. The patron has been rebuffed, the feedback considered merely whining and a matter of personal perspective.

What if the chef said instead, "what kind of fish was it?" What if the chef invited the patron back into the kitchen to take a look at the process and was asked for feedback?

Open conversations generate loyalty, sales and most of all, learning... for both sides.
-- Seth Godin, Open conversations (or close them)

I love Seth's blog. Often, after reading one of his posts, and I'll look at the world -- even if it's only one small corner of it -- in a new way. Take his post on opening conversations, above. He is right! Rather than saying, "Can I help you?" when someone comes into the store, say, "Hey, I love your handbag, where did you buy it?" That opens the conversation. "Can I help you?" gives the customer an obvious out, just say: No thank you. No further interaction.

It's common sense, but I'd never have thought of it in just that way.

Now, how do we apply this to writing?

My State of the Union

I haven't blogged for a couple of days, I'm sorry about that. Making at least one blog post a day is a priority for me and I wanted to let everyone know what's up.

My Dad is ill. I've shared this was some of you, usually I've just said I have a family emergency. After a decades long fight with kidney disease, my father's kidneys are failing. A week or so ago a nurse told me Dad's kidneys were very close to ... well, she just said that he would probably need to be rushed to the hospital sometime in the next two weeks. Hopefully, with the aid of a kidney machine, my Dad still has time left.

Obviously this is an emotional time for me, but it is also a busy one. My mother passed away in January and I have no siblings. My father is nearly blind -- I suspect he is legally blind -- and is hard of hearing, so he needs an attendant for his appointments. I do this gladly, but between taking care of my father and working, I have less time to write.


SO! Wow, I feel bad about dumping all that on you. Are you ready to hear my solution to my time problems? Here it is: Video blogging.

I'm a slow writer. I make slugs look like cheetahs by comparison. That was one reason I took up blogging; I figured I couldn't spend an eternity on a blog post and blog every day -- or even every week! And yet, I've managed to. Perhaps video blogging, as long as I don't read from a script, will help me to stop obsessing over every little thing. (A little voice is chuckling and saying, 'When pigs fly'. Whatev. ;)

My plan is to keep up with my links on Twitter, to keep posting about articles on my blog, and to begin posting perhaps a video a week. My videos will likely be sporadic and less than perfect, and I will deeply appreciate your patience as they improve.

I've felt guilty about not writing more personal posts, post like this one. Hopefully, video blogging will help with that. Also, I've discovered the Daily Post over at Wordpress. It's a blog that, each day, gives blogging suggestions for that day. I look forward to writing a couple of posts inspired by the topics of the day. And of course there's NaNoWriMo, I'm doing that this year; first time!

Reading over this post it looks as though I've explained why I don't have as much time as I used to and then decided to keep up with what I'm doing as well as add a whole bunch! lol Well, we'll see how that goes. Whatever happens, thanks for being understanding. :)

Cheers.

The Passive Guy writes about monopolies

He writes:

Major publishers have worked themselves into much the same position that Microsoft has. There are separate publishing companies, of course, but in important ways, they act in concert like a single monopolistic company.

For example, each offers virtually identical royalty terms to writers. Each offers very similar contract terms to writers. The only way publishers compete for a particular manuscript is by the amount of the advance. They have tacitly agreed not to compete in other ways.

As others have observed, big publishers have a remarkably haphazard manner of finding what they need to survive – new books.

Generally speaking, big publishers don’t develop their own products. Each sits around and waits for someone outside the company to give them a good new product idea. PG suggests that only in a shared monopoly could such a bizarre business practice be sustained.

The big publishers work with highly monopolistic big book wholesalers. The big book wholesalers work with a network of bookstores that has become highly consolidated over the last 20 years.

PG suggests the entire distribution chain from publisher the wholesaler to bookstore manifests classic features and behaviors of a monopolistic system – lack of innovation, lack of flexibility, narrow-gauge management and inbred thinking.

As one evidence of monopoly among Big Publishing, PG would point to what he believes to be a credible suit against all the large publishers for price fixing, one of the harms of monopoly.

While it is possible that Amazon may someday become a monopoly with all of the drawbacks that accompany such status, today, Amazon is primarily an Internet company. It is very close to its early history fighting its way up through a very competitive environment and is most definitely committed to innovation and very fast and flexible.

In your wildest imagination, can you conceive of Simon & Schuster or HarperCollins developing the Kindle? Elephants would flit back and forth among the clouds before that would happen.

A monopoly believes it is a permanent fixture in its industry. An Internet e-commerce company worries obsessively that it can be destroyed at any time if it doesn’t stay fast and smart. The contrast between Amazon and big publishing could not be more stark.

Big publishing is essentially unable to compete because its monopoly position has caused it to become inflexible and it has lost the ability to innovate. In the same way that Microsoft bumbles and stumbles when it tries to take on Apple or Google, big publishing is slow and oafish when compared to Amazon.

Read the entire article here: Will publishers be able to maintain primacy as ebook publishers?

Ebook: A book with no body?

Have you seen those old and marvelously cheesy sci-fi movies where someone is disassembled, digitized, and lives -- non-corporeally -- in a computer?
The other day I was musing that this is what has happened to the book.

Originally stories were written in pictures on walls, then on scrolls and, later still, the codex was developed. Stories were embodied in various physical mediums over the years and each new embodiment was considered a technological innovation.

Enter the ebook. With the advent of electronic books, the story has shed its physical, corporeal, form. Physical pulp and paper books have a shelf life and the story they contain has to be copied over to a new book, a laborious process, one that conjures up images of monks stooped over velum, quill in hand, painstakingly scribing words, sentences, into a new volume. Now the process is instantaneous and costs practically nothing.

It is an interesting thing to think about; at least for myself. But, then, I'm strange. ;)

For more weird and wonderful musings, check out Lev Grossman's article in The New York Times, From Scroll to Screen. (Thanks to Bob Mayer, and a comment he made on Kris Rusch's post, for the link.)