I was on my Goodreads group this morning and I found all kinds of posts asking for help. One post was specific to one sentence the author was trying to revise. She got responses right away and three great ones (okay one was mine but it was great, really).
I guess the point is, look for help everywhere. You never know where you’ll find that gem of advice that takes you to the next level.
Happy writing
Perry
Hi, here are a few links that you might find useful.
For writers who need to know all about forensic science.
Links within links from Charlotte Dillon about character development.
World Builder Projects, all about world building links.
Happy Writing
Perry
I have been lucky enough to be able to visit the site of my upcoming book, but I used a number of tools to research and write before going to San Francisco. The trip was to fine tune, not to do the primary research.
The two tools that I find the most useful, and maybe you do too, are Google Street View and just Google search. I know there are tonnes of other tools available both free and paid but these two tools have been my saving grace many a time when I needed to do a quick research and get back to writing – i.e. during National Novel Writing Month.
Using Google Street View let me see that there was a perfect place in front of city hall to dump a body in Closing the Circle. It didn’t show me that there are cameras all around and I needed to make sure I dealt with that when my investigators were unable to identify the killer.
Using Google search has helped me to research my Urban Fantasy – so far I can’t see what it is missing but we’ll see as I write.
Looking for a name for your character? type in your question in Google search bar and you’ll find all kinds of places to match attribute to name.
So, if you are stuck for a location, type in an address or intersection and Google maps will take you there.
Happy writing
Perry
Hi, this is from Ask the Publishing Guru – great advice on writing like a pro.
Happy writing
Perry
Well, experience is always good, sometimes it takes a while to get to that point. When you are going through something difficult, or many things difficult, it can be impossible to remember that you might want to use the experience in a book. That’s what write what you know is all about, isn’t it?.
Right now I’m handling my brother’s estate and it’s not easy. I am running around trying to get information, and taking a half step forward and three steps back most days. I’m sitting here in Starbucks waiting for his apartment to be cleaned – special cleaning required – and trying to keep a positive attitude about this huge task I’ve been handed. Why am I doing it, oldest sister syndrome – it has to be done and no one else will do it.
So rather than grouse about it, I’m thinking about how I’ll use the experience in a new book.
I’m not quite there yet, but I am trying to keep notes on what I’m doing, not only for research, but also for the estate records.
Anyway, the message is everything you do is useful – at some point in your life.
Happy writing,
Perry
For sale and coming soon from PaperBoxBooks.
Last night I was introduced to 750words a site for writers to get the juices flowing
The idea is to write 750 words every day and you’ll find the rest of the writing easier. You can write whatever you want, it doesn’t need to be a story or a scene.
When you write you graduate through the process of egg to turkey to penguin to … well you need to earn the points to get there. The fun thing is that you get all kinds of statistics and analysis of your writing.
I recommend you try it out, what the heck it’s a tool and we all have those days when we can’t seem to get going.
Perry
Don’t forget the great pricing contest $2.99 romantic fantasy or $6.99 dual version of a paranormal fantasy.
Hi, first, this is not a post for hoarders to use to point out they don’t need help. This is about keeping information that might be useful in your writing.
I generally clean house periodically, and I’m not someone who keeps things, I like clean spaces and lots of room. But, I do tend to keep books. Over the years I have purchased a lot of ‘how to write’ books. Most I’ve glanced through and kept them because they make my bookshelves look writerly. But, today I was clearing out my storage – preparations for moving house – and I found three books that I have used more than once.
Looking through this is inspiring and gave me lots of ideas when I started to work on Closing the Circle.
I have to say there’s nothing like a dip into religions to give you ideas on building your own world.
Any help on building a coherent myth – or borrowing one appropriately, is worth it’s weight in Leprechaun gold.
Do you have any writing books that you keep returning to time after time?
Perry
Hi, I just read this great post on Ask The Publishing Guru
Great tips for creating characters – and shameless plug for my own comment about incidental character development.
Happy writing
Perry
One of the things that a writer needs to do is develop their craft.
Simply writing more stories and stretching yourself to write new genres or working on the part of writing you find hardest will improve your skills. But, like most things in life, you can make bigger leaps if you work with others.
A conference is an organized series of talks or workshops. Some conferences incorporate writing time, but for the most part, you are there to learn skills, techniques, or career lessons from the pros. Shaw Guides is a great place to find writing workshops. It slices and dices the listing so you can easily find a workshop/conference when, where and for what skills you need.
Writing retreats are different, you will find some on Shaw Guides. but you can create your own. You can find a resort, or a B&B in some location – maybe where you’ve set your book – and go alone, or get some writer friends together, and set up specific writing tasks.
If you are trying to get started on a book, have a two day retreat on outlining or character building, or world building. If you are trying to get the first, second, five thousandth or last revision done, take a long weekend, get away from distractions. Then do it.
The benefit of taking a writing friend – not just friends who will want to golf or shop or whatever – is that you have someone to eat meals with who will understand if you are in the groove and don’t want to stop.
One conference I’ll shamelessly plug is the Canadian Authors’ Association CanWrite! 2010. June 2010 in Beautiful Victoria BC.
Happy Writing
Perry
How do you decide which blogs to follow? What topics do you find useful or entertaining?
Here’s a list of some of the blogs I follow.
A Newbie’s guide to publishing
and of course Sue’s Blog As it comes
They are a mixture of advice, personal journey and informative. When you pick a blog to follow what is it that you look for?
Perry