Writing Software.

Tree Sheets

Despite the title, this month's free software choices are not simply for writers. But they are worth mentioning because they can potentially save money and time. I admit being prone to play with new gadgets and ideas. My time savers can soon become time wasters, if I'm not careful. So when I read the recent reviews for Tree Sheets--another planning/ list making/to do tool, I was skeptical. Nothing the matter with my "to do" lists in Word, I decided. But I couldn't resist taking a look--and I love it.

It took a little time reading through the interactive manual which teaches you the system as you go. Even using it in its simplest form, I have found it fun to use, it saves me time and I am whipping through my lists of work to be done much faster than I would normally. This, I suspect, is because it is more than a list maker. It allows me to plan as I go and so speeds the writing process.

To do list with Tree Sheets

You can create grids of any size. The squares expand to  fit text and you can insert new grids inside the squares, add photos, and organize your ideas in an order to suit you. I find it far more flexible and faster to use than Excel or other spreadsheets and think it will be excellent for planning not only daily tasks but also book outlines.

It creates a tree-like mind mapping structure for your thoughts.
You can download it from the site above or from sites like Softpedia or Cnet.

Office Solutions

For writers disillusioned with the ubiquitous Microsoft Office, there are several free office suites constantly updating and improving and coming closer and closer to challenging the MS programs.

Open Office has had recent upgrades and the newer Libre Office is well worth looking at. Both are compatible with and can save docs in Word formats. Libre Office, I believe, may work better with the Word Track Changes function beloved by e-book editors. I have downloaded it, like the new templates for its presentations, and joy of joys, it is not clashing with anything else on my computer.

Worth a look especially if money is tight. 

Create an Online Comic

This might be another way to plan a book or picture book. Comix I/O is an online cartoon generator which is a great way to get to grips with learning html -- very useful to know when it comes to building your own websites.

It looks a bit daunting but try Geek Gurl Diaries #17 on You Tube, a quick six minute video on how to do it. I'll add my comic clips once I've practiced a bit more lol

My browser settings are not compatible with the editor feature but I can work around by copying the html into Notepad, changing the text there and then saving the new version with the html suffix--i.e. I save as mycomic.html in the new title box. Remember to keep a .txt version too to be able to change the text again.

Any problems, let me know.

But please leave the links to your creations in the comments below and share your opinions on any low-cost or no-cost software you find particularly useful.

 Anne Duguid is a freelance content editor with MuseItUp Publishing and she tries to pass on helpful writing,editing and publishing tips at Slow and Steady Writers 

November Challenges Part Two

Last month, I wrote about two November writing challenges that I planned to participate in: PiBoIdMo and NaNoWriMo. I am currently working on both. For me, PiBoIdMo is going better than NaNoWriMo. Hmmm. Does that mean I will be better at writing picture books than novels? Or perhaps it’s more realistic to plan to do only one of these during the month of November.  J

What I am doing this month seems insignificant compared to the challenges that many in my home state of Illinois are facing. On Sunday, November 17, several tornadoes hit parts of northern, central and southern Illinois. There were several deaths, along with many injured. Tornadoes also struck other Midwestern states – Missouri, Kentucky, Indiana and Ohio.

If you wish to help those in Illinois affected by Sunday’s tornadoes, there is a list of businesses and organizations accepting donations at the website below.

http://wgntv.com/2013/11/20/how-to-help-victims-of-illinois-tornados/

I don’t know who is collecting donations in the other states, but I recommend giving to the
American Red Cross or the Salvation Army if you would like to help.

I will be back to my regular monthly blog post in December. Thanks for reading!

Debbie A. Byrne has a B.S. in Mass Communication with a minor in History. She is a member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI) and is working on her first children’s book.

Reaching Your Writing Goals 15 Minutes at a Time

A number of my writing friends are participating NaNoWriMo this month with a goal of writing a 50,000 word first draft in November.  It’s a challenge designed to push writers forward through extended, dedicated writing time. 

And then, there are those who just can’t find the time for even 1,000 words—50,000 might as well be a million words.

It’s easy to get caught up in the belief that you don’t have the time you would like to dedicate to your writing. Unfortunately, this belief can derail your writing dreams.  So how do you pursue your writing goals when you are short on time?  

Jennifer Lawler, author of the Dojo Wisdom series, discusses how a martial artist trains each day, even when old and disabled.  The martial artist accommodates life around his art.  One of my critique partners is a lawyer with a full time job, two active young children, a wife, soccer games…the list goes on. Yet he still manages to write one to two hours a day.  How does he do it?  He gets up at 5 a.m. each morning.  He puts in the effort to accommodate his life to his art.

So how can you accommodate your days for your writing life?  Commit to 15 minutes of writing a day.  Even 15 minutes a day will begin the process of transformation.  Why?  Through those daily 15 minutes, you are informing your subconscious that you are committed to your goal.  You will be amazed after a week of allotting only 15 minutes a day, how much you can accomplish and how easy it can be.  Build it into your routine (e.g. shower, coffee, 15 minutes of writing).  If you are ready to change your life and pursue your writing goals, you will find the time.

So this week start with a daily routine of even just 15 minutes.  This small action oriented goal will help you create the habit of pursing your writing dreams.  Maybe that finished manuscript will be done sooner than you ever thought possible.

Mary Jo Guglielmo is writer and intuitive life strategist. For more information check out:

http://theadvantagepoint.wordpress.com

http://twitter.com/do_north

http://facebook.com/DoNorth.biz  

An Uncle in the Marketing Business? ~ Part 1

This past week I’ve been doing some fresh thinking around the topic of marketing. As Terri said yesterday, it can be a full-time job. On the other hand, if we allow it to be full time, we won’t ever get more writing done.

At times I feel as if I’m banging my head against the fridge—-but no food is coming out. So what am I doing wrong?

The other day, I had a light-bulb moment. I haven’t finished processing the topic, and would love to hear from you, but I do believe I’m on to something.

Let's start off by asking five questions.

1. Where are we marketing? As writers, we like to hang together, after all writers are really the only people who understand writers, right? We rejoice with each other when we have some sort of break-through moment. We encourage one another. And we share our links. This is a great idea. But it’s not marketing! Marketing starts to happen when those people, whether they are writers or not, share your links and your information.

2. Who are we marketing to? Here in South Africa we have a chain of furniture stores called “Joshua Doore”. They have a catchy advertising jingle that first appeared in 1970. It says, “You’ve got an uncle in the furniture business: Joshua Doore!” (You can listen to the original version here.) It really is a brilliant piece of advertising, and the fact that the main slogan is still played daily on our television sets proves this to be true.

It’s great to have friends in the business, and I’m sure the staff of Joshua Doore take advantage of specials on their floors. But imagine if you will that the advert only plays in store, outside of shopping hours, so the staff are the only ones present.

Kind of silly, don’t you think?

Yet, is that perhaps what we do as writers? We belong to writers’ groups, we create an author’s page on Facebook, and we invite all our writer friends to follow the page. After all, our “personal page” on Facebook is just that. It’s personal. We create one or more Twitter accounts, and we “follow” other writers and ask them to follow us. We retweet other writers’ messages—to other writers (of course, because those are the ones following us) in the hope that they will RT ours. We join LinkedIn, and we link to other writers’ groups. We may enjoy the fellowship, and much of this may be helpful, but it’s not marketing! Marketing starts to happen when those people catch the message and share it, together with your links.

3. Do people really follow our marketing attempts? A friend was a missionary teacher in a primitive country. Her small daughter was one of her pupils. One day the mommy was busy making supper and the little girl was trailing her, chattering endlessly. All of a sudden the child called, “Teacher! Teacher!” The mommy stopped and looked in astonishment. The child had worked out how to get her mommy’s attention. She had realised that Mommy had tuned out from her incessant chatter.

Don’t we all do that? We tune out to voices or other people who are not interesting us. That leads to another question. In our marketing, are we perhaps trying too hard? When people see our posts, do they switch off? I confess that I have a few such contacts. I know any link they share will be self-promotion. I know nothing about them except that they are writers. And they know nothing about me. They're not interested in me—and I don’t know enough about them to know if I'm interested in them. I hardly ever read their tweets, their Facebook pages, or their LinkedIn comments.

4. Are we missing the point with our marketing? Not other writers (unless of course we’re writing for writers, like this blog). But are we reaching the ones who want or need to read what we have written? Sure, we're interacting on various social media sites, like Facebook, LinkedIn, Tumblr, Twitter, Pinterest, Google Plus . . .   But think about it. These all fall under the category "Social Media".

My dictionary defines “social” as “Marked by friendly companionship with others.”  We're not talking about Marketing Media. It is called Social Media. Social. Friendly. 

5. How can we be social and still market? Is it possible? We're already complaining that we don't have time to both market and write. How can we now stop to have "friendly companionship with others"? Surely that will take up even more time? "I don't have the time for this!" we wail, as we carry on furiously using up time on ineffective methods of marketing.

I don't believe it will require more time. I think it calls for a smarter use of our time. But I've already taken up enough of your time explaining the dilemma, and I hope I've given you something to think about. Next month we'll look further into this, and hopefully come up with some easy ways to become an uncle (or aunt) in the marketing business.

OVER TO YOU: Do you have any thoughts about how we can develop our social skills without frittering away time we don't have? Please share your suggestions below.

More Reading on Making Friends on Social Media

Making Twitter Friends
Some Old Facebook Friends

SHIRLEY CORDER  lives a short walk from the seaside in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, with her husband Rob. She is author of Strength Renewed: Meditations for your Journey through Breast Cancer. Shirley is also contributing author to ten other books and has published hundreds of devotions and articles internationally. 

Visit Shirley on her website to inspire and encourage writers, or on Rise and Soar, her website for encouraging those on the cancer journey. 

Follow her on Twitter or "like" her Author's page on Facebook, and if you tell her who you are she'll be happy to be your friend and follow you back.

Marketing Is Not for the Faint of Heart

Marketing is hard work... no really it takes effort. Those who have celebrity status may not have the same difficulty with marketing their work but little old me who has only a handful publishing credits doesn't fair so well. It can downright make me grumble.  Here is what I have learned, my own marketing 101 if you will.

1. Marketing is a full time gig. Whether you are giving a 20 second statement to a peer about what you do for a living or you are meeting with your printer to do a flier on your new book you must think about how, when, and where you can market your newest work and also yourself with every contact you make.

2. Marketing can take up so much time that you don't get enough writing time. It may take up so much time that you actually feel resentful because between websites, blogs, and networking  you don't feel like a writer anymore but more like a PR spokesperson. And the truth is, you are.

3. Marketing one published work will continue well into the next project promotion if you want that published work to keep selling. You also must start marketing the newest project well before it is published to continue building your writing platform. It feels like a continuous motion similar to the endless moving sidewalks in those huge airports. One leads to the next and finally you get to your terminal.

4. You need to set marketing boundaries and as an author, you need to rest and refresh. Realistically decide what percent of your day should  be writing and what should be marketing and networking. Design your day and your work week with those boundaries in mind and include a portion for rest and rejuvenation.

Marketing can be fun but it is also time sucking hard work. Seek advice from experts in the field of marketing the written word and some of those experts are right here at our fingertips. Soak up the information in their books and on their websites and sign up for their newsletters. Join a critique group that will help steer you to the right contacts or who will write  reviews of your work or share your name with those who might need your services. And the most important part of marketing is to believe in yourself and your work. That is not being arrogant but confident, and that will make the marketing of yourself a tad bit easier.

Tips on Point of View

You have completed your manuscript and now is the time for you to edit and rewrite. One of the things you should look at is your point of view. Did you choose the right perspective from which to tell your story? And is it consistent? Here are a few guidelines.

First of all, point of view refers to who is telling the story. Generally three points of view are used. First person - where the "I" voice is used and it is a character who is telling the story. This provides a level of intimacy, a closeness to the story teller.  Omniscient - which is where the author is telling the story and generally provides a more distant perspective. And third person - which is almost a mix of the two, where you can tell the story from several different perspectives and move easily from one character's head to another. 

Tips for editing POV:

1. Determine how much intimacy you want to create between the reader and your characters.

2. After deciding the level of closeness you want, check to see if the point of view you chose also allows you to easily tell the story in the way you want.

3. If you have chosen first person, is your character someone readers will want to spend time with? Are they likable, but flawed? Not annoyingly perfect.

4. If you chose to write in third person, review each scene and determine who's head you will be showing the scene through and make sure you are consistent in only sharing with the reader those things that particular character would know.

5. When using third person, check each passage and determine how soon you clue the reader into who's head they are in. You may want to make sure readers can quickly identify who's perspective they've stepped into. 

6. To continue to create consistency in your POV, look to ensure when you are writing from a particular character's perspective you are using the words, terms and emotions that are most likely to be used by your character. 

____________________________________

D. Jean Quarles is a writer of Women's Fiction and a co-author of a Young Adult Science Fiction Series. Her latest book, House of Glass, Book 2 of The Exodus Series was written with coauthor, Austine Etcheverry.

D. Jean loves to tell stories of personal growth – where success has nothing to do with money or fame, but of living life to the fullest. She is also the author of the novels: Rocky's Mountains, Fire in the Hole and, Perception. The Mermaid, an award winning short story was published in the anthology, Tales from a Sweltering City.  

She is a wife, mother, grandmother and business coach. In her free time . . . ha! ha! ha! Anyway, you can find more about D. Jean Quarles, her writing and her books at her website at www.djeanquarles.com

You can also follower her at www.djeanquarles.blogspot.com or on Facebook

Marketing Mistakes to Avoid if You're a New Freelance Writer

by Suzanne Lieurance, the Working Writer's Coach


If you’re trying to build a business as a freelance writer, you need to market yourself and your business, of course. But avoid these common marketing mistakes and you’ll build your business (and your income) much faster:

Setting Up Too Many Online Sites Too Soon
Most writers love to blog. In fact, I see writers who set up blog after blog before they find any writing jobs that pay, thinking these blogs will help them build their writer's platform. But then, before they know it, they’ve eaten up all their available writing time simply trying to keep up with the many fun sites they’ve created.

Create just one blog or website that you can use to promote your freelance writing, then get some writing jobs that pay before you branch out and set up additional fun sites.

Writing for Free for Too Long
In the beginning, freelance writers need published clips so they can get bigger and better writing assignments. And it’s often necessary to write for free to get these published clips. Yet many writers continue to write for free long after they’ve acquired published clips. They spend their days writing book reviews or conducting interviews with authors. They end up spending a LOT of time doing this, and it eats up the time they could, and should, spend writing for pay or looking for new assignments or clients.

If you're a new freelance writer, write a few short articles for online directories or no-pay markets to get clips. But once you have these clips, start looking for writing jobs that pay. If you like to write book reviews and interviews with authors, do this only after you’ve acquired some steady writing assignments that will provide you with income.

Spending Too Much Time Doing the Fun, Easy Stuff
To earn money as a freelance writer, it’s necessary to send out queries and take other actions to get new clients and assignments. This is usually uncomfortable for new writers, so quite often they avoid the real work that can help them earn substantial income in favor of spending too much time doing fun, easy stuff like tweeting, posting to Facebook, and even writing short low-paying articles for content mills. They convince themselves this is building their business, yet it isn't bringing in any new clients or assignments.

Start your workday looking for new assignments or clients and save the social networking and more fun stuff for later in the day.

It isn't difficult to build a substantial income as a freelance writer if you spend most of your time focusing on actions that can earn you money.

Try it!

Suzanne Lieurance is an author, freelance writer, certified professional life coach and writing coach, speaker and workshop presenter. She has written over two dozen published books and hundreds of articles for newspapers, magazines, and other publications. She lives and writes by the sea in Jensen Beach, Florida.

Visit her blog at www.writebythesea.com and for daily tips to help you stay focused on your writing career, get your free subscription to The Morning Nudge at www.morningnudge.com.