Support An Author Month Task: Give Kindness

If you have never gotten around to it, please give one!

When someone inspires you, or if you see someone who is using their writing gift to help others, please take the time to thank them publicly by giving them this award (and the rules for passing it on.)

This award is open to anyone to use. You don’t have to receive it, in order to be able to give it. Please take the details and images off this page and use it to encourage another writer. The rules for passing it on are very simple:

1. You are welcome to give it out as many times as you like, but it is only to be given to a maximum of one person per blog post. If you wish to give multiple rewards, please space the blog posts by at least a week, so the sincerity is maintained.
2. Introduce the person; say how they encourage, help or inspire you; then link to their work and/or social media profiles. There may be a specific post you wish to link to which helped you. It’s up to you.
3. Please publicise your award post to Twitter or Google Plus using the hashtag #writtenkindness so that others can find and follow the award winners.

Get the Award Badge and Code

<div align="center"><a href="http://cateartios.wordpress.com/" title="Written Acts of Kindness Badge" target="_blank"><img src="http://virtual-desk.com.au/SmallBadgeWrittenActsofKindnessAwardby%20cateartios.jpg" alt="Written Acts of Kindness Badge" style="border:none;" /></a></div>

Boxed code from “Grab My Button” Code Generator: http://www.mycoolrealm.com/sandbox/gbgen/

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This blog post by Cate Russell-Cole is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. You are free to share and adapt it.

Blog Post Promotion on Social Media: Instantly Hooking Reader Attention

[This is all the space you have to grab a reader's attention when your post is promoted on social media. Sometimes you have] a little more space, sometimes you don’t. It works the same way as the first paragraph of a novel, if you don’t hook the reader in that “prime real estate,” you lose their interest.

Let me give you an example or two. When you post a link on Facebook, whether on your timeline or page, you get an image and the best part of a long sentence.

If you use this space to say, “This is part 28 of my series on books…” your blog post may not come across as appealing to read. The same works for guest posts where you introduce people, rather than letting their message pull in interest. “Joining me today as part of the “Lessons from the Writing Life” Guest Post series is Molly Jones…” I am out of promotional space. No one sees who Molly is, or why they should use their limited time to read the post.

Google Plus works the same way. Unless you write an introductory comment to attract attention, you get a blue hotlink and the first sentence. That’s all.

Please do visit Sonia’s blog, Gutsy Living. It’s awesome. http://soniamarsh.com  That wasn’t enough either was it? Again, so much of our success in gaining promotion comes from great tag lines. “Sonia’s blog features ordinary people who overcome the challenges in their lives. It empowers me when I read it.”

If you are a Triberr user, you have yet another problem. The tag line from your blog can get in the way of Triberr promoting the first line of your post. All the readers will see for any post is “CommuniCATE features resources for writers which are published twice weekly.” That is useless. Because of this, I deleted my tag line. I noticed my share stats had dwindled and this was why. Here is what a well done post on Triberr looks like. (You may prefer no hashtags in the title.)

So think about what you put in that all important space. It will make a significant difference.

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This blog post by Cate Russell-Cole is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. You are free to share and adapt it.

No images on this blog may be copied, captured, or altered for your own purpose without the consent of the originating owner. 

Support An Author Month Task: Buy That Book!

You know you’ve been meaning to… this week, your love task is to go buy that writing friends book you’ve planned to, but didn’t get around to.

Last week, to put action behind my preaching, I got onto Amazon and bought several tantalising ebooks which are below. Click on the cover to buy the book.

Please, take the time to do the same.

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Leaving the Hall Light On: by Madeline Sharples

A Mother’s Memoir of Living with Her Son’s Bipolar Disorder and Surviving His Suicide charts the near-destruction of one middle-class family whose son committed suicide after a seven-year struggle with bipolar disorder. Madeline Sharples, author, poet and web journalist, goes deep into her own well of grief to describe her anger, frustration and guilt. She describes many attempts — some successful, some not — to have her son committed to hospital and to keep him on his medication. The book also charts her and her family’s redemption, how she considered suicide herself, and ultimately, her decision live and take care of herself as a woman, wife, mother and writer.

A note from the author: I encourage you to read my book if you have been touched by bipolar disorder or suicide. And even if you have not, my book will inspire you to survive your own tragedies. As author Jessica Bell says: Leaving the Hall Light On is “a remarkable book and it SHOULD be read.”

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Sailing Down the Moonbeam by Mary Gottschalk

With a destination loosely defined as the rest of the world, Mary and her husband Tom leave family, friends and successful careers for a multi-year sailing voyage. As the voyage takes her farther and farther from her traditional support systems, her world becomes more and more defined by forces outside her control. Mary’s travels through often uncharted island communities, provides a compelling metaphor for a journey of self-discovery.

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Freeways to Flip-Flops: A Family’s Year of Gutsy Living on a Tropical Island by Sonia Marsh

What do you do when life in sunny Southern California starts to seem plastic, materialistic and just plain hellish? For Sonia and Duke Marsh, the answer was to sell their worldly goods and move to an unspoiled, simpler life with their three sons in Belize, Central America, a third-world country without all the comforts and distractions of life in the developed world. Sonia hopes the move will bring her shattered family back together. She feels her sons slipping away from her, and her overworked husband never has time for her or the boys. Instead, things begin to go wrong immediately. The home they initially rented isn’t available, so the family is forced to take up residence in a primitive, bug-infested shack. Duke’s telecommuting plans prove impractical because of unreliable Internet access, and he loses his job. Middle son Alec – always a conscientious, polite, tractable child – misses his friends and has trouble adjusting. As the days turn into months, Sonia finds herself questioning the family’s decision to move on a nearly daily basis. This is the story of one family’s search for paradise. In this memoir, Sonia chronicles a year of defeats, fears and setbacks – and also the ultimate triumph of seeing once-frayed family ties grow back stronger from shared challenges and misfortunes. For Sonia, paradise turned out not to be a place, but an appreciation of life’s simple pleasures – a close-knit family and three well-adjusted sons with a global outlook on life.

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Out of Sync by Belinda Nicoll

In 2001, when a couple leaves South Africa for a stay abroad, they land at JFK International Airport on September 11th, unprepared for the sight of smoke billowing from the Manhattan skyline or the horror of a second plane exploding into the North Tower. Over the next ten years, as their host country confronts fundamental change of its own, their marriage buckles under the strain of their disparate experiences. With the international economic crisis making it all but impossible for them to return to their country, they relocate from California to the North, the South, and the Midwest searching for a place they can call home. Against the backdrop of uncertainties in post-apartheid South Africa, Belinda Nicoll unfolds a contemporary and thought-provoking account of post-9/11 America’s tantalizing hopes and unexpected disappointments. Out of Sync is an insightful tale about marital endurance that promises to enthrall anyone, expatriate or not, who has ever felt at odds with themselves or the world.

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This blog post by Cate Russell-Cole is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. You are free to share and adapt it.

Plagiarism: Getting Out of Sticky Situations

This is a purchased iStock photo. Under NO circumstances may you re-use this image without buying it for yourself.

I don’t know how trouble got my contact details, but I’m finding it’s harder to get out of trouble, than it is to get off the Readers Digest mailing list!

Sharon won a free book of mine a few months ago and promised me a review, which she very kindly gave me. [Gratuitous self-promotion: read the review here.] She visits my blog and I love her posts, so when she asked me to review her book, of course I said yes. That’s how it starts. You do something nice for someone and it is, after all Support An Author Month…

I started reading her book on descriptions in writing, and as I am not a fiction writer, I had more lightbulb moments than an Oprah Fan Convention! It is an easy to absorb book for writers bristling with so many “oh yeah!” ideas I’ve never thought of… I read a few chapters, emailed and conned her into doing a guest post for me on a particular topic. Read a few more chapters and then went to do my usual thing, and start jotting down ideas for my own blog posts…

Whoa there Cate! You can’t do that! You can’t review someone’s book, then write your own posts on nearly every topic… Which would effectively mean I had lifted too much of her book content with my own spin. As much as I’d like to meet Sharon, I don’t want it to involve lawyers, or her standing on my doorstep wielding a mean looking rolling pin!

I had to email Sharon back and say, “I had to stop reading.” Thankfully, she took that as a compliment.

A few volumes which belong to my temptation shelf.

I read other books by writers and I take out the odd quote or concept and write about it. One very small part here and there, linked back to their work is fine. However, Sharon had done too good a job… the temptation was too much!

So what do you do when you read a novel or book which gets under your skin that effectively? Put it down and walk away quietly. Even if you don’t pick up a pen then, it goes into your subconscious and will revisit later. (I don’t usually use the word bristling, by the way. It’s in my head now, with “nose like a ski run.” I love that one! I want to use it. I have to, somewhere, somehow…)

You can return to that book later, but be a little more critical and be very, very aware when you are writing that it doesn’t creep in. I need a shelf of books which would be my red flag section. (Oh rats, flag… Um, sorry Sharon.) The most delectable, dangerous influencers would sit there ready to inspire, but to serve as a warning. The temptation shelf…

So please, save me from myself and get Sharon’s book. It is excellent. If you do that, I know I can’t write on those topics.

You can buy Sharon’s book here and follow her blog here. Below is from Amazon.

“Book Description: Turn Blah into Brilliant with this Jam-Packed Volume on Description

Sharon Lippincott’s delectable writing gives you the spoonful of sugar to help the description medicine go down. In this slim volume– forty-eight short lessons-you will be so busy learning to hang on to inspiration, color up your words, and breathe life into your writing, you won’t even realize you’ve also learned to ditch dummy subjects, clear out dead “would”, and apply tips for using dozens of other description power tools.In reading this book, writers in any genre will discover

• An expanded perspective on the nature of description
• The difference between active and passive description
• How nouns and verbs impact description
• The importance of using sensory description
• How to capture inspiring phrases for later reference
• Tips for taming your inner critic
• How to gain inspiration by reading like a writer

This book will change the way you think about description. Order your copy now and transform your stories into magic carpets that carry readers into your world.”

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This article / blog post is Copyright Cate Russell-Cole 2013. All rights are reserved Internationally. You may not reproduce it in any form, in part of whole, without Cate’s prior written permission. That includes usage in forms such as print, audio and digital imaging including pdf, jpg, png etc. A fee may be requested for re-using her work if it is for a commercial venture. Link sharing and Pinterest pins are most welcome as long as Cate is the attributed Author.

No images on this blog may be copied, captured, or altered for your own purpose without the consent of the originating owner.

Support an Author Month Task: Best Post Ever!

As part of Support an Author month, please visit a favourite blog; locate a post that inspired you and leave a comment saying, “This is my favourite post. Thank you!” Be sure to Tweet, Facebook or share it on G+ so the author knows you’ve spread the word. #bestpostever

You are also welcome to leave a link in the comments here and recommend a blog, if not a specific post.

Cheers everyone! Thanks for the positive response to this initiative. My favourites are all on my twitter feed if you want to check them out. There are awesome posts there for writers. I’ll keep adding through this week. https://twitter.com/cateartios

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This blog post by Cate Russell-Cole is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. You are free to share and adapt it.

Pay Yourself First

“Pay yourself first,” was the solid advice I was given with business book keeping: and face it, writing is a business, even if you work at it recreationally. If the IRS wants a share, it’s not necessarily a carefree hobby any longer…

It is not the size of my royalty cheques that keep me writing. Please, hold my hand while I tell you the story of banking my very first ever royalty cheque from the almighty Amazon. A Hallmark, Kodak, landmark moment! (Not quite…)

I was tired. I had another headache. I had my husband double-check the numbers on the stub to ensure Amazon got it right before I banked it. Then I had a frustrating twenty minute wait while a very young customer service representative with chipped nail polish, unkept hair and no sense of organisation, danced around to the tune on the piped music and ran from desk to desk, attempting to work out what to do with an international cheque. (Yes, professionalism is dead.)

The grand prize for this? 70% culled off my takings as I am in Australia, not the States; plus another 5% taken off by the United States Internal Revenue Service (though it was worth the four month fight with Amazon, or that would have been 30%); $7 lost in the exchange rate and the standard $15 international cheque lodgement fee. (I just checked my account and the National Australia Bank just slapped me with an additional fee for spending that time on their “very fine” premises rather than netbanking a physical cheque!) I looked at the receipt and saw how little of the amount I got to keep and wanted to cry. I make more money selling a handful of writing course CD-Roms, than I did from pushing 1500 books. I went to text my long-suffering husband for comfort… to find my phone battery had run out!

Made by Madame Purl, a great blog for craft lovers! http://madamepurl.com/2008/01/20/bunny-slippers/

Pay yourself first. Pay myself with what? If I made 5c an hour for all the work I had put into writing, editing, formatting and promoting those books, I’d still be solidly in the red. I know that the amount adds up over time and makes it worthwhile… but on a first cheque, which I should have been exited about, it stunk!

So how do you pay yourself first when the money isn’t there? You do it by placing value on what you do and how it makes you feel about yourself. This is one instance when looking for outside approval is not going to do anything to encourage you. You pay yourself in personal satisfaction. I wrote those books, which I thought I’d never have the time to do. Other work and lack of courage had always gotten in the way of becoming a published author. In overcoming those hurdles, I have achieved a dream.

When I look back, it has never been money or recognition that has motivated me to write. I started writing when I was all of nine and my sister bought me a diary. I have been hooked on getting my thoughts down ever since. These days, I just share it with other people. One day I will probably say “enough” to business and will exchange my keyboard for my bunny slippers and Star Trek re-runs. Even then, I will always find the time to write.

Writing has to be for me first. It has to be what I want to do. It has to be its own reward. Chasing financial success works for a very few, but being true to yourself works for all.

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This article / blog post is Copyright Cate Russell-Cole 2013. All rights are reserved Internationally. You may not reproduce it in any form, in part of whole, without Cate’s prior written permission. That includes usage in forms such as print, audio and digital imaging including pdf, jpg, png etc. A fee may be requested for re-using her work if it is for a commercial venture. Link sharing and Pinterest pins are most welcome as long as Cate is the attributed Author.

The Oy Vey keyboard image is Copyright Cate Russell-Cole 2013. The bunny slippers come from the stated blog owner. No images on this blog may be copied, captured, or altered for your own purpose without the consent of the originating owner.

We’re All in this Together: How to Support Other Writers

Update: Damian Trasler has taken up the Support an Author in May cause, has started a list on his Google + feed for anyone who wants to promote their book. Damian is a successful playwright who recently wrote a guest post for CommuniCATE. He’s worth following.

Following the feedback I’ve received from Sandra’s post on toxic critiques, I’d like to focus on unity within the writing community, and we are a community.

I’ve met many writers who stick together with their fellow wordsmiths. They generously take the time to ‘like,’ ‘plus one,’ share, recommend, comment, rate and mop up tears. More of us give than tear apart; that’s how it should be!

Please take a little extra time each week this month to support other writers. Ways you can do that include:

• Buying that friend’s book that you have always meant to buy, but never gotten around to.
• If you have read a free book, leave feedback and recommend the author. Never leave a giveaway or gift unrewarded.
• Use your powers for good! Resisting the urge to leave a scathing negative critique. Ok, their work wasn’t your style or done to your standard. Let it be. Move on: don’t destroy.
• Leave blog comments, likes, ratings and plus ones (Google Plus) where you can.

Expletives aside, the message is right, no matter what topic we’re on.

• Give a Written Act of Kindness Award (details are below.) You have no idea how much giving these awards has encouraged and blessed MY socks off! Make someone’s day.
• Sponsor an initiative such as ROW80 to encourage other writers.
• Send a struggling writer an e-card which encourages them.
• Join a Facebook or Google Plus group and give one post a day a positive comment.
• If you see a request for financial support on someone’s blog (when they are non-commercial and freely giving to other writers), even if you can just give a few dollars, please do. Some sites and blogs are expensive. They need help to run them.
• Pass this post on to spread the word. The logos on this post are available for everyone to use.

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The Written Acts of Kindness Award

When someone inspires you, or if you see someone who is using their writing gift to help others, please take the time to thank them publicly by giving them this award (and the rules for passing it on.)

This award is open to anyone to use. You don’t have to receive it, in order to be able to give it. Please take the details and images off this page and use it to encourage another writer. The rules for passing it on are very simple:

1. You are welcome to give it out as many times as you like, but it is only to be given to a maximum of one person per blog post. If you wish to give multiple rewards, please space the blog posts by at least a week, so the sincerity is maintained.
2. Introduce the person; say how they encourage, help or inspire you; then link to their work and/or social media profiles. There may be a specific post you wish to link to which helped you. It’s up to you.
3. Please publicise your award post to Twitter or Google Plus using the hashtag #writtenkindness so that others can find and follow the award winners.

Get the Award Badge and Code

<div align="center"><a href="http://cateartios.wordpress.com/" title="Written Acts of Kindness Badge" target="_blank"><img src="http://virtual-desk.com.au/SmallBadgeWrittenActsofKindnessAwardby%20cateartios.jpg" alt="Written Acts of Kindness Badge" style="border:none;" /></a></div>

Boxed code from “Grab My Button” Code Generator: http://www.mycoolrealm.com/sandbox/gbgen/

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This blog post by Cate Russell-Cole is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. You are free to share and adapt it.

Yes, You Can Write Upside Down!

Calling all Aussies… and Kiwis who enjoy a paddle across the pond. These gems are coming up Down Under in May.

Worldwide festivals can be found on my Twitter festival list https://twitter.com/cateartios/writer-s-festivals

Sydney Writer’s Festival, May 14-20

Purchased from http://www.iStockphoto.com. You cannot use this image for any reason without buying it yourself.

“Sydney Writers’ Festival is Australia’s largest annual celebration of literature and ideas. Each year, we present over 300 events (half of them for free) and attract attendances of around 80,000 in venues that stretch from the Festival hub at Walsh Bay to the Blue Mountains. For one week every May we bring together authors of the very best contemporary fiction and writers of cutting edge nonfiction, including some of the world’s leading public intellectuals, scientists and journalists. With the finest literary writing at our core, our programming is driven by the ideas and issues that animate all forms of writing.”

http://www.swf.org.au/ 

Twitter: @SydWritersFest

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The Emerging Writer’s Festival, May 23rd – June 2nd, Melbourne

This one is for writers and isn’t just reader based. “The Emerging Writers’ Festival is an independent arts organisation based in Melbourne’s Wheeler Centre for Books, Writing and Ideas. We exist in order to promote the interests of emerging writers – to improve their opportunities for professional development as well as their engagement with the broader public. Each year the Emerging Writers’ Festival brings writers, editors, publishers and literary performers together with the reading public for a festival that is fast becoming an essential part of Australia’s literary calendar.”

http://www.emergingwritersfestival.org.au/ewf-2013/ 

Twitter: @EmergingWriters

Tired and Out of Time? Balancing the Blogging Load

Perhaps it’s part of being an autobiography writing teacher, but I love reading blogs. I enjoy them as they are real: you can sense it when someone is genuinely sharing with you. The only thing that bothers me is how often I hear how burnt out bloggers feel. It worries me when I keep coming across post after post where bloggers are expressing how wrung dry of inspiration and physically exhausted they are. I read in profiles how bloggers work all day, come home and deal with family needs, then write until insane o’clock, as that is the only writing time they have. From an outsiders point of view, it leaves little mystery as to why writer’s block so often sets in. It’s fuelled by overwhelm and fatigue.

http://www.iStockphoto.com

It would be very easy for me to step into strict writing teacher mode and command “blog less often!” The issue is, if you’ve done your homework on how to blog, to satisfy the search engine rankings and build an audience, it is recommended you blog daily. If you don’t, there are dire predictions of failure and doom. It comes down to the settings of the search engine ranking robots: which care as much about the needs of flesh and blood humans beings as say, your toaster does. Recently one blogging Twitter feed, which I normally enjoy, started preaching down this path. Such was their fervour that you had to work yourself into the ground to succeed, I unfollowed them. The last thing anyone needs is the whip being cracked at them in an already ‘too-busy’ society.

So that leaves bloggers with a choice: Buy into “toaster mentality” and let your life be ruled by search engine logic and cyber peer pressure; or take care of yourself by posting less and taking the pressure off. I opt for the latter, but not just for myself, also because as a reader, I know I simply cannot keep up with every post that comes out that I really want to absorb and comment on. We are potentially overwhelming the supporters we want and need. Could that be why so many blogs have such low subscription and comment numbers?

http://www.ohgizmo.com/2007/02/19/pirate-toast/

What you do as a blogger is entirely up to you. Just as long as it’s right for you! From everything I have studied about writing, to write daily is a necessity for writers who are truly serious. May I suggest, that perhaps, as an alternative to blogging every day, keep a journal, or use some of your would-be posts as writing practice? There is a great sense of satisfaction to be had from just writing for YOU, experimenting and having fun for your eyes only. It is all about breaking away from the “toaster mentality” and doing what your creative heart is telling you to do.

If you write less often, it also means you are under less pressure to put forward a polished piece of work which ultimately becomes part of your writing portfolio. Write when you have something you really want to say and share. Plus be careful about how personal your posts are… When you are online, it is dangerously easy to forget just how open your most personal information and feelings are to anyone who finds you.

The bottom line is, take good care of yourself. If you look after yourself and allow yourself time and space to be open to new input, ideas will generate much more easily and you can recapture your enthusiasm. There are more ways of becoming a recgonised blogger than merely relying on search engine rankings and appearing in Twitter feeds en masse. If you would like support, use the #mywana tag on Twitter started by @KristenLambTX who supports bloggers. There are also blogging community web sites out there that may be helpful. Just beware of the toasters…

DISCLAIMER: To be true to my geeky heritage, I would like to state that the negative use of the word ‘toaster’ in this blog post in no way includes “After Dark’s” Flying Toasters, who were always the good guys. Particularly the baby ones. “When there’s a job to be done, the flying toasters will be there…” I wish they would bring that screensaver back.

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This article / blog post is Copyright Cate Russell-Cole 2013. All rights are reserved Internationally. You may not reproduce it in any form, in part of whole, without Cate’s prior written permission. That includes usage in forms such as print, audio and digital imaging including pdf, jpg, png etc. A fee may be requested for re-using her work if it is for a commercial venture. Link sharing and Pinterest pins are most welcome as long as Cate is the attributed Author.

No images on this blog may be copied, captured, or altered for your own purpose without the consent of the originating owner. Where images are marked as being iStockphoto.com images, they are paid for and licenced to Cate for use on this blog. If you take them, iStockphoto.com has the right to take legal action against you for Copyright Infringement.

Please see the Blog Content and Image Copyright page of this blog for further information in regards to Guest Posts, other images, Cate’s checks on infringements and Liability.

The Internet, Respect and a Fair Go for All Writers.

The last few weeks have left me feeling like I am on the crazy train. I’ve dealt with inane and unnecessary obscenities, being force-fed gay porn (don’t ask!), people who are leaving comments editing other people’s comments… yup… and that is the start! I am getting over days of migraine pain and I have really had enough.

I don’t know any blogger or writer who doesn’t work their butt off trying to churn out quality material, that includes myself. The trouble is, it doesn’t matter what you do, what your intentions or how careful you are, you get attacked. May I suggest a calming solution?

Let’s look after each other. If you do not like a status / tweet / blog post / book or web site, do what you would do in a restaurant: skip over it to something you do like. Don’t start a celebrity chef brawl. How many of you go out to dinner and then go into the kitchen to tell off the chef, as you don’t like duck? None? OK, so why do we do it to each other online, publicly, in a manner that hurts people and destroys reputations?

If you don’t like an outfit while shopping, you pass over it on the hanger and get something else. If you don’t like a book in the book shop, you put it down and browse elsewhere. The same behaviour here would bless people out of their socks! I am weary of nurturing writers through cruel reviews and judgemental attacks. If you hate it, don’t go back… or unfollow or just move onto something else. Please don’t try to force someone into your way of thinking. You would hate it being done to you.

There are billions of people on this planet; there should be multiple opinions, it makes the world a greater place. However, we struggle with being able to tolerate anyone who thinks differently. Human nature has this obsession with wanting to herd everyone into line, like sheep dogs.

Please, stifle the temptation to point out a minor editing issue, dislike of someone’s book cover / taste in music / religious views / weird blog post topic / hot issue / obsession with cute bunny photos… just let it be.

Paul McCartney’s mother, Mary, had it right. Remember this song? This is slightly out of context, but the advice still applies.

“Let it be, let it be.
Let it be, let it be.
Yeah there will be an answer, let it be.
Let it be, let it be.
Let it be, let it be.
Whisper words of wisdom, let it be.”

Just let it go. You will be less stressed. You will feel good about yourself. Live and let live. It’s not worth a life of conflict where you burn your bridges and guaranteed, someone will go after your neck in return.

Cheers!

Looking for the comments?

I am getting off the crazy train for this week. All comments are off.

They wouldn’t let me put in an English version due to Apple and EMI blocks in the region, so this is subtitled in Spanish Disfrutar!

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This blog post by Cate Russell-Cole is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. You are free to share and adapt it.

No images on this blog may be copied, captured, or altered for your own purpose without the consent of the originating owner. 

April Writing Events Online: NaPoWriMo and WEGO Health Activists Blogging Challenge

If you are a poet and looking for the equivalent of NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), then gear up for an April start!

The initiative was started by Maureen Thorson, a poet living in Washington, DC. As the site states, “She started writing a poem a day for the month of April back in 2003, posting the poems on her blog. When other people started writing poems for April, and posting them on their own blogs, Maureen linked to them. After a few years, so many people were doing NaPoWriMo that Maureen decided to launch an independent website for the project.

Easy! Just write a poem a day for the month of April. You can post them on the internet. You can hide them in a notebook. You can make up a special book just for yourself out of them. Really, all you need to do is write a poem a day for the month of April. If you choose to post your work on the internet, you can submit your website for inclusion in our online roster of participants.” Or if you don’t have a web site, you can get yourself a free blog at WordPress or Blogger and use that.

The NaPoWriMo blog is here: http://www.napowrimo.net
You can contact Maureen via email: napowrimo2010 AT gmail DOT com.

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Writing about health literally can change the quality of people’s lives AND SAVE lives. Please, get on board. This is a great initiative. If I was still working the the preventative health education field, I’d be doing it!

“Health Activists are incredible communicators, always sharing great info, ideas, and support for their online community. It’s time to get extra creative! April is our Health Activist Writer’s Month and brings the official Health Activist Writer’s Month Challenge (#HAWMC).

We’ve prepared 30 health-related prompts that will help you get creative on your blog, facebook page, or health community all month long. Take the challenge and do a post a day for all 30 days of April!

Sign up now and we’ll send you all 30 prompts before April starts so you can start your planning (and writing!) early. We’ll also send you 30 images you can use on your blog to show your readers that you’re participating in #HAWMC.” 

In the interests of full disclosure, here is what Wego Health is all about: “WEGO Health is a different kind of social media company – our mission is to empower the top 10% of online health social media contributors to connect with each other and with healthcare companies. We call these passionate people Health Activists – they’re community leaders, bloggers, on Facebook, on Twitter, leading online forums, and usually “all of the above.

If online health communities are an unruly high school, then Health Activists are its dedicated teachers – and WEGO Health is the teacher’s lounge. We help leaders to come together, to learn from each other, and to go back to their classrooms better at their craft.

Full-disclosure: WEGO Health funds its support for the Health Activist community through transparent, community- vetted advertising and sponsorships from health companies: research, content development, education, events, conferences, distribution programs, ad networks and more. We believe a solid business model helps us to provide an enduring, self-sustaining home for Health Activists.”

The Best Kept Editing Secret

In 2000 I published a memoir writing course. It has been revised four times and edited by three trained editors: two at University level. I have put countless hours of work into perfecting it, but guess what? If you read through, you will still find very small typos hidden in it like Easter Eggs. That drives me to screaming point!

It’s not just me. Since I’ve switched to e-books, I am finding frequent mistakes in books from best selling authors, distributed through traditional publishing houses. One mistake was of an unrelated sexual nature and the spell checker, or editor, should have easily picked it up. It looks like the editing monsters are tormenting more souls than mine!

So why does this happen? Let me tell you the secret. When I researched “Unleashing Your Creative Spirit,” I delved into theories on memory and how it functions. Your brain is the busiest organ in your body. It runs your internal organs, all your movements, your memory, computes stimuli from your five senses, logs time, drives your subconscious thinking processes and deals with what you are doing now: reading. At the same time, it makes sure you aren’t hot / cold / hungry / thirsty / tired / in pain, or about to be run over by a bus! It has to compute what is around you, plus predict what to expect next.

That is a massive workload to achieve all at once! So the brain, being smart, has brilliant means of conserving energy. It’s actually very eco-friendly, but that’s sometimes to a writer’s detriment.

Have you ever been to a friend’s place and said, “You’ve repainted,” just to have them look at you strangely and tell you they did if five years ago? Of course, it will be the home of that friend you visit fairly frequently. It’s a common faux pas. We all go to familiar places and say, “I never noticed that before.” It happens because in order to save the energy it takes to log all the details, your brain does a quick scan and just takes in what is the most important. For what it considers to be familiar or non-essential details, it relies on memory, or blocks stimuli out.

How does this work with editing? When you have read the same paragraph ten times, it becomes too familiar. The brain automatically decides that you don’t need to re-log all that, so mistakes go unnoticed. You’ve seen those emails where you can still read sentences, even though the letters in the middle of the words are mixed up? They work because a familiar pattern is identified and you auto-fill the rest.

So, how do we overcome this? Make your work look new! When I started blogging, I discovered that I would pick up mistakes in WordPress’ preview mode that I couldn’t see in the writing window. In preview, the font size differed and words were in different spots on the page. If you’re working in a word processor, you can try for the same effect by changing fonts, changing margin widths, altering text color, or opening the document in a totally different word processor.

The other lifesaver I use is to put my work aside, wait 48 hours then edit again. That gives my brain a chance to re-set.

So don’t beat yourself up over the occasional small typo. We all make them. Do everything you can to prevent the slip-ups from happening and remember: it’s all because you’re just too efficient!

News just to hand: starting March 1st there is a free initiative running named “National Novel Editing Month.” Your goal is 50 hours in March. Join here: http://www.test.nanoedmo.net/

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Please click on the book cover to order. You’re also welcome visit Cate’s website for full book details and to read sample pages.

This article / blog post is Copyright Cate Russell-Cole 2013. All rights are reserved Internationally. You may not reproduce it in any form, in part of whole, without Cate’s prior written permission. That includes usage in forms such as print, audio and digital imaging including pdf, jpg, png etc. A fee may be requested for re-using her work if it is for a commercial venture. Link sharing and Pinterest pins are most welcome as long as Cate is the attributed Author.

No images on this blog may be copied, captured, or altered for your own purpose without the consent of the originating owner.

 

How Many Are There? Schizophrenia & Multiple Personalities

One of the aspects of psychology I have found the most fascinating is abnormal psychology. While living with conditions such as Clinical Depression, Bipolar Disorder (formerly Manic Depression), Schizophrenia and Multiple Personality Disorder are far from desirable, the way the brain’s chemistry and human behaviour work are astounding.

As writers, mental illness is an area you can delve into to form characters, or use as a plot device. While writing about mental health issues can be very helpful in creating awareness, if the particular diseases are not understood, substantial harm can be done as erroneous stereotypes are reinforced in readers.

There are two diseases which are frequently misunderstood and mixed up. These are Schizophrenia and Multiple Personality Disorder (or Dissociative Identity Disorder.) I’m sure you’ve heard jokes such as, “I’m a Schizophrenic. So am I.” The perception that Schizophrenia involves a split personality is completely wrong. The diseases manifest and function in distinct ways.

The best definition of disease I have ever heard was explained as dis-ease. It is something that makes you uncomfortable and cannot be easily lived with. Unlike back pain, or some other physical ailments, you cannot brush it away and keep going normally. That definition encapsulates the effect of mental illness on a person.

Schizophrenia is a split from reality that makes everyday living, work and relationships extremely difficult, if not impossible in some areas. It has a biological basis which appears to depend on brain chemistry. It can be caused by genetics, drug misuse or biochemical imbalances in the brain. It results in a delusional state of mind where the way the sufferer sees things, feels or thinks is fragmented and differs from the norm. It is a complex disorder and there are different forms of Schizophrenia, but the sufferer is still themselves: one person; one set of thought processes and no internal division.

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Multiple Personality Disorder is completely different. It does not have a chemical cause. It is created by severe trauma in early childhood which may have come from ritualistic abuse, or repeated extreme sexual assault. It is an amazing defence mechanism, where in order to cope, the sufferer will fragment parts of their personality which become separate identities. Each identity has a function in the survival of that person. Some identities can be wounded; they can be representative of different ages; other identities are fierce to provide protection. More than one of these identifies may hold the memories, or smaller parts of them, that need to be suppressed for emotional survival.

As WebMD states: “someone with Dissociative Identity Disorder may find themselves doing things they wouldn’t normally do such as speeding, reckless driving, or stealing money from their employer or friend, yet they feel they are being compelled to do it. Some describe this feeling as being a passenger in their body rather than the driver. In other words, they truly believe they have no choice.”

Not every identity may be complete. There can be any number of identities and at any time, something may cause the sufferer to “switch” to a different identity without warning. The oft-repeated example is someone going into the grocery store; seeing something that upsets them and then switching for protection. They are left standing there with no idea why they are in the store, or what happened. If you would like to watch a movie that correctly depicts Multiple Personality Disorder, watch “When Rabbit Howls,” but be warned. The movie content is extremely distressing as it comes from the true story of a survivor of horrific childhood abuse.

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There is a great deal more I could say about how each of these dis-eases functions, however, I am going to leave it to you to do your own research. We need people in the community who understand that mental illnesses are not faked, exaggerated, or a way to opt out of society. They have treatable causes, but the side-effects of the drugs and permanent nature of these dis-eases makes living with them a tough journey. I hope this post gives you greater understanding. Please, represent people with kindness.

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This blog post by Cate Russell-Cole is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. You are free to share and adapt it.

Writing Treasures Hidden in Plain Sight

A great example from Juliana Haygert.

I was chatting to someone about how far back they read through blog posts. The general consensus seemed to be, that unless visiting that discovering a new blog turned into “love at first sight,” you don’t tend to dig back too far, or visit archives. There isn’t the time! She was suggesting that I put information on my e-books on my blog. That worried me. Not because it wasn’t a great idea, but because that information was already there!

Look up under my blog header. See the links to the pages? They contain my full bio, e-books, feedback about my work and other information I want you to read. It seems she never noticed and from my blog stats, I know people rarely look. I quickly made sure I had my books featured more prominently.

Where do you look when you read a blog page? It seems we don’t just look back, we may also not look up, down or to the left or right.

Perhaps I missed my calling in archaeology or crime scene investigation, but I habitually poke around. I am always looking for ideas on great blog design, but I find more than that. The sidebars are great treasure troves!

I know some bloggers cram their side bars with junk and advertising, but within that minefield, there are resources I would never have found on the web any other way. I don’t have the time to do long searches for services… some which I haven’t even considered I needed before. I find them in the side bars! If the blog owner has hotlinked the image back to the source, it’s heaven! If not, at least I know what to search for. I’ve been known to bookmark blogs just to come back and raid that sidebar. Who knew you could get traffic that way?

So what have I found through sidebars? Here is a small selection. Just click on the name or link to go there.

ROW80

http://www.blogwithintegrity.com/

http://www.ladieswhocritique.com

http://www.bloglovin.com/

http://blogaliciousblogs.blogspot.com.au/

http://www.bloghub.com/

Google Friend Connect

Networked Blogs

She Writes

http://www.blognotions.com/

http://www.buzzerhut.com/

http://www.yousaytoo.com/

http://www.fuelmyblog.com

http://theblogfrog.com/

http://bloggers.com/

http://triberr.com/

Goodreads Reading Challenge Progress Bars

Twitpic has a widget you can place on your blog

We Blog: Blogging Community on Facebook that shares posts freely http://www.facebook.com/groups/240976049268613/

http://compassionbloggers.com/get-involved

http://wanatribe.com

Camp NaNoWriMo

Anti-book Piracy free badges for web sites http://www.lalasdesigns.com/search/label/Badges and more!

An excellent example of how to do an easy-to-read side bar comes from Juliana Haygert. An image of her sidebar is at the top of this post. Juliana lists her books; makes it easy to follow her around the Internet; has a great image link to her publisher; interesting information about her; her Twitter feed is at the base and from her I discovered three new bars of gold I never knew existed. Please go and have a look at her site. You cannot do much better than that. She has covered the most important areas. Think about your blog. Do you really need that calendar which don’t mean much to the reader? What are your priorities in getting information across? What represents you best?

So when you’re visiting a blog, take a look to the left, the top under the header and the right! If you are a blogger, make that sidebar count! I’ll visit to raid it.

Juliana has kindly given me permission to use an image of her sidebar in this post.

This blog post by Cate Russell-Cole is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. You are free to share and adapt it.

No images on this blog may be copied, captured, or altered for your own purpose without the consent of the originating owner. Please see the Blog Content and Image Copyright page of this blog for further information in regards to Guest Posts, other images, Cate’s checks on infringements and Liability.

Support for Writers With Demanding Lives

Whether you write memoir, fiction, are a blogger, poet or feature article writer, join us for A Round of Words in 80 Days. It is starting today!

I started ROW80 last year and it’s the most helpful group I have had the joy to join. I helps me set goals, stay on track… and keeps me honest if I am too tempted to slack off! I have gotten a great deal of benefit and enjoyment from the company of the incredibly supportive ROW80 writers.

ROW80 has four rounds which will take you right through 2013. It is the writing challenge for people who do have a life! It is for every genre; friendly; inspiring and allows you to set your own, flexible goals which give you space to breathe!

If you can’t start this Round, you are welcome to begin late in the Round, or you can commence in April, July, or October. There is a two week break between rounds, no fees, no obligatory sign-up and no spam!

The ROW80 page is here: http://aroundofwordsin80days.wordpress.com I will look forward to seeing you.