The feed works, so go ahead and add worderellafeed to your friend's pages!

So, it seems as though the RSS feed is currently a little wacky right now for the new blog. Either that, or LiveJournal is taking its revenge on me for switching systems, and it's refusing to read the feed correctly. I'm pretty sure it's not working on my end, though, so I'm playing around with the code to fix it...ah, the joys of Open Source.

In the meantime, I'll post both here and at the new blog, which is located at http://blog.worderella.com. Add me to your link list/blog roll! Once things are up and running, I'll let you know to add the LiveJournal feed for Worderella.

By the way, my birthday is tomorrow.

Well, I'm slowly but surely working toward hosting my own blog. I would like to generate traffic toward my website rather than LiveJournal, and, given all of the scandals that have been happening lately on LiveJournal due to fanfics, etc, I think it's best that Worderella exeunt stage right. I still love LiveJournal, but in terms of business, and web traffic, it makes more sense to have this blog on my actual website. I'm keeping my personal and writing journals here, simply because it would take too much to convert 6 years' worth of writing to another blog. That's a lot of history I have with this company! So hopefully things will smooth out and 6A will stop being such newbs about how to write to LJ users.

Don't worry about missing my posts, however! I've already created a feed, worderellafeed, so feel free to add it to your friends' list. It'll be like I never left! Except...you'll have to go to my website to comment, now. I've also found that, in trying to convert comments over, all of the comments look like they were posted on August 4, when I started the conversion, rather than the dates when they were originally posted. Tis sad, and something I shall be working on. I'm a programmer, right? I'm sure I can decipher the encryption that saves the date to the text file... X_x

So, for the time being, no new posts while I convert to the new system. If you add the feed, you might get a sudden influx of the most recent 10 posts on your friend's list, and for that I apologize.

Title: The Wayward Muse
Author: Elizabeth Hickey
Genre: Historical Fiction
Length: 293 pgs

Summary: It is the beginning of the Victorian era, and Jane is a very ugly girl. On an outing with her sister, Jane is spotted by two artists that consider her the most beautiful woman in the world, thus changing her life forever.

( Excerpts )

Why should you read this book?
Excellent writing, as you'll find in the excerpts I've posted. I thoroughly enjoyed this book, despite Jane's character, which makes me respect Hickey even more. Once I realized the plot, I almost put the book away, except Hickey's writing and depiction of the characters stayed my hand. This book is one of the best fiction depictions of a real Victorian marriage that I have read yet; the main characters are real people, and while the story may not be entirely factual, the plot seems to follow the real time-line faithfully. The writing style is simple yet lush, the scenery vivid, the characters organic and sympathetic. Anyone working on making their characters flawed, especially the main character, should read this book as an example of how to maintain your reader's interest.

Title: The Glass Harmonica
Author: Louise Marley
Genre: Paranormal Historical Fiction
Length: 369 pgs

Summary: The year is 2018 and Erin is the premiere virtuosa on the glass harmonica, an instrument that, over the centuries, has been known to make its player and select members of the audience go mad. Though she publicly denies these rumors, secretly she is terrified they are true once she starts to see visions of a girl who does not exist.

The year is 1761 and Eilish Eam, an Irish orphan, has been plucked from her unlucky existence to play Benjamin Franklin's new invention: the glass armonica.

Excerpts:
pg 116 - It was the terror that lurked in [Erin's] nightmares, that stalked her when she was weakest, most vulnerably. It was the fear that made her snap answers to stupid questions, made her impatient and angry at the probing and pushing of interviewers and reporters and historians. She was afraid. She wasn't afraid of her wraith, of ghosts or visions or manifestations. What she feared was that, like her predecessors, like the ancestral virtuosi who had first played her precious and mystical instrument, her nerves were breaking down. She was afraid she was going mad.

Why should you read this book?
This book is well-written: all the characters have backstories and motivations, and the setting is fully realized. Despite this, I felt no connection with the characters. I read the entire book, but I never felt drawn to the story, wondering what would happen next. And I should have, because this was an interesting idea. As a musician, I loved the history of the glass harmonica; as a historian, I thought Marley's depiction of Benjamin Franklin was great; as a scientist, I loved the idea of applying music to neuro-therapy. As a writer, I thought something was lacking, which may be because the back cover copy made the story seem more action-oriented, a time-travel similar to The Lake House (which defies so many laws of physics and time-travel, even).

A pleasant read, the one thing that really annoyed me was Marley's use of "'twas" and "'tis," beyond the 1761 dialogue. For example: Eilish pushed the basket again, trying to make her two seed coins clink together. Talk brought no food. 'Twas money she needed. In my opinion, Marley should have stuck with a first-person narrative for the 1761 story, and third-person for the 2018, if she wanted to write like that. But then, another reader will find it charming, and think I'm crazy for not liking it. Such a subjective profession this is...

I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that don't work.
- Thomas Alva Edison

So, I've been getting a lot of writing done, which is exciting. If you've been checking out my profile page this week you'll have watched my percent complete slowly creep up to its current position of 49.89 or something ridiculous like that. It's slow-going, but then, slow-going while writing just about every day is actually good progress.

I don't know why, but First Draft B is coming along much more smoothly. I have an overall tone that I'm actually adhering to, and I've come up with some cover ideas that (while they have different moods) reflect the main idea.

Now, this post is a random amalgamation of topics, I know. But while I'm talking about covers, which are a portion of your marketing plan, I also want to talk about Moo. I don't get any perks for talking about them, I'd like to make that clear. I just really like their product. The idea is that everyone has business cards, but hardly anyone has minicards.

Minicards are the same length as a business card, but half the height. On the front, you put the name of your book, your writing blog, your website, the cover of your book... and then your contact information on the back. In terms of book marketing, you can use these cards as bookmarks, gift tags, etc. Moo also has sticker books and notecards. I'm waiting to see if they will offer stickers with text, because I would love to have stickers that say "Local Author" or "Autographed Copy" to slap on the cover of the new book. Just a couple of ideas for your own projects.

Fear Factor
Get inspiration from your own fears and phobias - if it scares you, the chances are it will scare a good proportion of your readership. Primal fears go to the very route of who we are and can be particularly effective if they're magnified or exaggerated for the purposes of your story.

Short and Sweet
Use short sentences to keep your prose tight and efficient. This will help create tension, whereas longer, description-heavy passages will slow down the pace. And if you're writing a novel, keep your chapters short. Not only will this crank up the stress, readers will be encouraged to read more of your book!

Shock Treatment
Keep readers guessing by leaving each chapter or scene on a cliffhanger of some sort. It doesn't have to be one of your characters in a life-threatening situation each time, but you should aim to have your readers wanting to know what happens next.

Found at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/getwriting/module21p

I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is to try to please everyone.
- Bill Cosby


And now for some amusing news that will make any rejected writer feel a little better...

Publishers fail to spot plagiarized Jane Austen
LONDON (Reuters) - Even Jane Austen would have trouble finding a publisher today, a struggling author revealed Thursday.

David Lassman sent off to 18 publishers assorted chapters from Austen novels in which he changed just the titles and the names of the characters.

He called himself Alison Laydee after Austen's early pseudonym "A Lady."

Seventeen publishers rejected or ignored his bid for literary glory. Only one spotted the ruse and told him not to mimic "Pride and Prejudice" so closely.

Lassman, who decided on the experiment when struggling to get his own novel published, told British media: "Getting a novel accepted is very difficult today unless you have an agent first. But I had no idea of the scale of rejection poor old Jane suffered."

Thanks to redshoeson for the heads-up! Article from Reuters on Thu Jul 19, 2007 9:45AM http://www.reuters.com/article/email/idUSL1941223720070719

I often read that the biggest things a writer should worry about are theme and organization. Theme, because that is the heart of your work; organization because that's the skeleton to help you write about the theme.

For the longest time I wondered, How does one find a theme in the first place? Maybe something happened in your life that you want to write about. Let's face it, wanting to write about that topic isn't enough. You need a focus, something that connects you to the topic and distances you from it at the same time, so that you can communicate clearly with your reader.

I began with "I want to write a romance, but I don't want the heroine to be the typical spunky girl. I want her flawed, and with heavy concerns." So, I worked from there, writing character descriptions and first drafts; I wrote an entire 94k first draft just throwing whatever came to me onto the page. I celebrated, because we all should celebrate the completion of a draft, especially when it takes three years to do it (full-time student, remember). Then, I stuffed it under my bed (or maybe in the back of my closet, I'm always re-organizing so I never completely know where some things are) and started over.

Step One: Write a shitty first draft and be done with it.

After that, I walked away from the work for a month. Namely, NaNoWriMo month. The crazy speed of that writing month invigorated me, and in December I said hello to the original work with a new focus. I started over with this new focus, with a new understanding of the characters, and with a pretty solid understanding of their initial back stories.

Side Note: a back story, if you don't recognize the term, is a short story and/or history about a character, location, or object that happened before your current time line.

Step Two: Use the extraneous parts of your shitty first draft as a collection of back stories to your characters.

Now I'm halfway through First Draft B, as I like to call it (props to redshoeson for the naming idea). I know where I would like the story to go. But my initial back stories aren't full enough. I have to go back. Give each main, secondary, and even tertiary character additional back stories about their history with the other characters. These back stories lead to motivation, motivation to decision, and decision to action. But my back stories all need a theme. There must be something connecting these characters. But... how to write the theme?

The theme is a single sentence that succinctly describes what your work is about. Also known as a thesis, blurb or hook: the main idea that keeps you writing, and grabs the reader's interest. Still, it's hard to know how to write this magical sentence. So, look at examples. The first sentence on the back cover of a paperback is usually the hook, which the copywriter expands into paragraphs about the main characters and why we should read about them. I also found reading the New York Times bestseller list really helpful, because the top ten have one-sentence summaries.

Step Three: Read the New York Times bestseller list.

Try to keep your theme/hook/blurb/thesis at fifteen words or less. You want this to be focused but universal, so don't use the main character's name unless it is a sequel or part of a series. Don't use passive voice! Choose your words carefully; every word in your theme should be there because there is no better word for it.

Here are some examples from the bestseller list in July:

Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen: A young man — and an elephant — save a Depression-era circus.

The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards: A doctor’s decision to secretly send his newborn daughter to an institution haunts everyone involved.

Peony in Love by Lisa See: Love, death and ghosts in 17th-century China.

The Quickie by James Patterson and Michael Ledwidge: A police officer’s attempt to get back at her husband, whom she suspects of cheating on her, goes dangerously awry.

After you have the main theme, things will fall into place, slowly at first. Your theme is your thesis, so tie everything back to it and you'll have a tight, organized work.

To get your ideas across use small words, big ideas, and short sentences.
- John Henry Patterson