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.

Writing with Kids in Tow? Jodi Picoult Successfully Did

“Jodi Picoult, 43,is the bestselling author of seventeen novels: Songs of the Humpback Whale (1992), Harvesting the Heart (1994), Picture Perfect (1995), Mercy (1996), The Pact (1998), Keeping Faith (1999), Plain Truth (2000), Salem Falls (2001), Perfect Match (2002), Second Glance (2003), My Sister’s Keeper (2004), Vanishing Acts (2005), The Tenth Circle (2006) Nineteen Minutes (2007), Change of Heart (2008), Handle With Care (2009) and House Rules (2010).

Picoult studied creative writing with Mary Morris at Princeton, and had two short stories published in Seventeen magazine while still a student. Realism – and a profound desire to be able to pay the rent – led Picoult to a series of different jobs following her graduation: as a technical writer for a Wall Street brokerage firm, as a copywriter at an ad agency, as an editor at a textbook publisher, and as an 8th grade English teacher – before entering Harvard to pursue a master’s in education. She married Tim Van Leer, whom she had known at Princeton, and it was while she was pregnant with her first child that she wrote her first novel, Songs of the Humpback Whale…”

“In 2003 she was awarded the New England Bookseller Award for Fiction. She has also been the recipient an Alex Award from the Young Adult Library Services Association, sponsored by the Margaret Alexander Edwards Trust and Booklist, one of ten books written for adults that have special appeal for young adults; the Book Browse Diamond Award for novel of the year; a lifetime achievement award for mainstream fiction from the Romance Writers of America; Cosmopolitan magazine’s ‘Fearless Fiction’ Award 2007; Waterstone’s Author of the Year in the UK, a Vermont Green Mountain Book Award, a Virginia Reader’s Choice Award, the Abraham Lincoln Illinois High School Book Award, and a Maryland Black-Eyed Susan Award. She wrote five issues of the Wonder Woman comic book series for DC Comics. Her books are translated into thirty four languages in thirty five countries. Three – The Pact, Plain Truth, and The Tenth Circle, have been made into television movies. My Sister’s Keeper was a big-screen release from New Line Cinema, with Nick Cassavetes directing and Cameron Diaz starring, which is now available on DVD.

She and Tim and their three children live in Hanover, New Hampshire with three Springer spaniels, two donkeys, two geese, eight ducks, five chickens, and the occasional Holstein.” Source, her web site: http://www.jodipicoult.com.au

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.

#atozchallenge Y is for 2Years2aBook [Infographic]

Reblogged from Hunter's Writing:

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2 Years to a Book. That’s what I realised I could accomplish – on top of my normal writing projects and goals during the year. For others who don’t have the luxury of so many free hours to write, as I do, the program also allows for a book draft completed during that first year.

Read more… 818 more words

When Hunter first put this post out, I shared this infographic on Twitter etc showing how to write a book in two years. The whole post is worth a proper reblog as there is so much gold in here! Thank you Hunter: particularly from someone who hates long term projects and likes things done and dusted. This is a good reminder to pace myself.

Creative Gestation: The Benefits of Giving Work “Off Time”

Any writer knows how it feels to finish a brand new piece: The excitement is intense. This one, we tell ourselves, is the best we’ve ever written. Quick! Let’s submit it! Hold it right there, Shakespeare. Not so fast.

One of the biggest favors you can do for your work is allow it to rest. Put it out of sight and out of mind for a while, and then come back to it with fresh sight and a sense of objectivity. Let the bright gleam of novelty age into the patina of reason, and then assess this “masterpiece” you’ve created.

Experts have termed this practice of waiting “creative gestation,” and much like the shaping of a child in the womb, producing quality work requires a degree of time, no matter what genre. By coming back to your writing later on, you’ll find that certain word choices can be improved, images can be sharpened, and other enhancements can refine your work even further. Rather than sending an immature, embryotic creation to editors, you’re handing over “your baby,” fully developed, delivered, and ready.

Some poets like Philip Levine and Billy Collins have advocated putting a piece away for a year or more, while other artists and writers say a week or so is better than adequate. My own writing, I’ve found, undergoes a “gestation” of about two to three months – this allows many eyes to see it, and plenty of time to elapse between re-readings and revisions before I’m ready to submit. And of course, like that of all artists, my work is constantly in flux, even after acceptance and publication.

Even short breaks from the screen, page, or canvas can help, however. Getting up, stretching, walking short distances at a brisk pace, or grabbing a light snack and beverage can create cognitive distance from your work, allowing for new perspectives upon returning to it. Also, by allowing oxygen to circulate to the brain via the bloodstream, creators can ensure that their grey matter is functioning at optimum levels consistently, research indicates. Classroom educators have known this trick for a while, incorporating “brain breaks” into everyday cooperative learning structures so that students stay focused and alert. The same research applies to adults and artists: get off your backside and your brain won’t backslide.

Every writer has different practices and habits, and for some, creative gestation may take more or less time to be truly effective. No matter how many days or weeks it takes, however, one thing is for certain: Creative gestation allows for better decisions, improved insights, and real maturity of one’s work.

John Davis Jr. is a Florida poet whose work has been published in literary venues internationally. His poems have recently appeared in Deep South magazine, Saw Palm magazine, and Touch: The Journal of Healing, and he has forthcoming poetry in The Wayfarer. His book, Growing Moon, Growing Soil: Poems of my Native Land, is available through Amazon and other fine retailers. His website is: http://www.poetjohndavisjr.com/

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This blog post is Copyright John Davis Jnr 2013. All rights are reserved Internationally. You may not reproduce it in any form, in part of whole, without the author’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-use.

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.

Creating Multi-Dimensional Characters #2---Everybody Lies

Reblogged from Kristen Lamb's Blog:

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Monday, we started talking about ways to create multi-dimensional characters. It's tempting for us to create "perfect" protagonists and "pure evil" antagonists, but that's the stuff of cartoons, not great fiction. Every strength has an array of corresponding weaknesses, and when we understand these soft spots, generating conflict becomes easier. Understanding character arc becomes simpler. Plotting will fall into place with far less effort.

Read more… 1,366 more words

Part two of Kristen's excellent series.

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.

Ways to Create Multi-Dimensional Characters--Tip #1

Reblogged from Kristen Lamb's Blog:

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To give characters depth, we have to be people-watchers. Study people. Know thyself. I strongly recommend reading books on psychology as part of research. For instance, I read a lot of FBI books on profiling.

As writers, characters need some amount of consistency without being predictable. If there is some deviation from the profile, there must be a good reason WHY, other than we need a character to act a certain way to move our story forward.

Read more… 1,249 more words

Another awesome post from writing coach Kristen Lamb. This is a must read!

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As regular readers know, this blog passes on great resources for writers. Often I will reblog the very best content, as doing so gives the originating author and their blog more exposure. Their blog also receives the hits from my posts. Reblogs of CommuniCATE posts are always welcome (unless stated), as long as my Copyright remains in tact. Copyright of any reblogs strictly belongs to the originating author. Please, don't rip off their work!

You are welcome to use this reblog logo on your own blog to encourage sharing of your work.

Coping with a Cynical Critique, by Sandra Nikolai

Like any writer who wants to succeed, I spent years learning about the profession and refining my skills. I attended writers’ conferences, studied how-to books on writing and publishing, and read piles of novels in a variety of genres.

Armed with a draft of my first mystery novel, I took the next step in the process: I found a mentor through a writers’ group I’d joined. My mentor offered to review the first and last thirty pages of my novel and email her comments to me after a month’s time.

At the end of the session, her email arrived and I was eager to read it. As my eyes flew over the words, disbelief stifled enthusiasm. Her remarks were sarcastic and stung as much on screen as if she’d read them out loud in a room full of people. She proposed drastic changes to the characters, settings, and plot. She even advised me to re-write the entire story in the third person. (I’d written it in the first person.) In closing, she defended her position as a “tough editor” and hoped her comments would help me write a better book.

You’ve got to be kidding!

My next reaction was to send “Miss Sarcastic” a nasty email but I decided against it. It wasn’t worth the time or energy to respond to someone who was inconsiderate and rude. I’d just file a complaint against her on the evaluation form I had to complete and send it off to the writers’ group headquarters. And yet…

Available from Amazon Kindle http://www.amazon.com/Impressions-Michael-Elliott-mystery-ebook/dp/B0086WMMZ0/ref=sr_1_6?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1338295012&sr=1-6

I read Miss Sarcastic’s comments again. Her mocking attitude had dealt a serious blow to my ego, but what if she was right and my story did need a revamp? After all, she had a handful of published mystery novels under her belt and had mentored other writers. I was…well…green. Surely she must know what she’s talking about. And so I conceded, knowing that the revisions to my manuscript would entail a major upheaval. In fact, the task proved a lot more difficult than writing the book in the first place and took months out of my life. After I’d finished, I put it aside. When I read it a week later, I was disheartened. It was no longer my story. The changes I’d made had sucked the life right out of it. I hated it.

Not one to accept defeat, I reviewed Miss Sarcastic’s comments again—this time from an unbiased perspective. I dug out my original manuscript and integrated the changes that I felt would benefit the story and ignored the rest. After I finished, I had to admit it was a stronger novel.

I recently heard that my mentor has abandoned her writing career. Her book sales weren’t doing well, so she accepted a job with a media firm. If anything, I owe her a modicum of gratitude. The experience inspired me to set up guidelines that I’ve since followed when reviewing critiques of my work. I’d like to share them with other writers in the hope they might find them useful too:

1. Take the time to review a critique. Let it ferment. You might interpret it differently later on.

2. Try not to take a negative critique as a personal insult but consider it with an open mind.

3. A negative critique gives you a choice: either fix the problem or ignore it. Consider how any change will affect your story. Will it strengthen or weaken it?

4. No one knows your characters or plot as well as you do. If a suggestion for a change doesn’t fit— no matter how good it might sound, don’t force it into the story.

5. Growing as a writer means heeding your inner voice or gut feelings. Trust your writer’s instincts more often. If you believe that a change will improve the story, do it. If not, move on.

Happy writing!

Meet Sandra Nikolai

Sandra was raised in Montreal, Québec, and graduated from McGill University. As a young girl, she loved reading the Nancy Drew mystery series and was determined to write her own stories one day. Her career choices didn’t exactly lead her along the “yellow brick road” to writing mystery novels—though working in a bank and experiencing a string of armed robberies did ingrain terrifying memories worthy of a story!

In 2002, Sandra won an Honorable Mention in Canadian Writer’s Journal short fiction competition. She has since published a dozen short stories online and in print. False Impressions is her first mystery novel in a series featuring ghostwriter Megan Scott and investigative reporter Michael Elliott. She is currently working on Fatal Whispers, book two in the series.

Sandra is a member of Crime Writers of Canada and Capital Crime Writers.

You can catch up with Sandra at her beautiful website and blog:

• http://sandranikolai.com/
• http://sandranikolai.com/blog/
• Buy False Impressions from Amazon Kindle

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This blog post is Copyright Sandra Nikolai 2013. All rights are reserved Internationally. You may not reproduce it in any form, in part of whole, without the author’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-use if it is for a commercial venture.

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

Telling Your Story in Pictures…

…without starting a family fight, getting too touchy-feely, or writing a massive autobiographical work! There are so many ways of writing down your experiences, if you feel bogged down by the slog of a book approach, please visit my guest post at Kathy Pooler’s inspiring blog “Memoir Writer’s Journey.” This technique has been a great inspiration to my local life story students, and it will help steer you past the pitfalls of wordiness and hurt feelings.

http://krpooler.com/2013/04/22/thinking-inside-the-frame-using-photographs-to-tell-your-story-a-guest-post-by-cate-russell-cole/

Post feedback from author, Sherrey Meyer: “Cate, you have given us much to ponder and work with regarding the manner in which we reveal our stories to the world. This is a most unique exhibit and I would love to see it in person. The imaginative force that brought William to create essentially a story board with photos and words is amazing. Thanks so much for sharing it here today. 

Kathy, thanks for inviting Cate, who is one of our most creative writing mentors on the planet! Cate has a knack for finding the innovative and unusual methods for enhancing our written work and in this case an entirely new format for passing the story along. I really enjoyed this post.”

Sherrey’s blog Healing by Writing is worth following. http://healingbywriting.wordpress.com/author/sherreya/