Time to Write

Promote Your Writing With Videos

Turnerhere.com is an interesting site and business. They have more than 2000 videographers and film-makers on tap around the world to create sponsored short films for them about a variety of topics. These include business profiles, travel destinations, and writers. They have a deal with Simon and Schuster to create short promotional films about their authors and books, and now are expanding this to more publishers.

Naturally there is nothing to prevent you from making such a short film yourself, about you and your writing, to go on your website and your friends' websites and even on your and their MySpace pages, for example. Why not create your own mini-network that way?

You can go to the Turnhere website to see samples of their authors' videos to use as a model. Also, here is a brief interview with the founder of Turnhere, Brad Inman, about how their business works.

The Power of Poetry for Writers

In the Daily Writing Tips blog, there’s a post about learning from poetry, and it reminded me that although I’m not into writing it (or, for that matter, reading a lot of it) poetry does have the power to refresh the mind. The post points out that poetry can teach word economy, powerful imagery, and provide inspiration.

It’s always great when you run across a phrase or a metaphor that delights you, especially since we get so used to the mundane, lowest-common-denominator language of news bulletins, advertising, and magazines.

If you need an injection of language that loves language, read a poem! And if you’ve written something that seems a bit flat or uninspired, try putting it into the form of a poem. That may yield a phrase or idea that you can then inject back into the prose format to give it new life.

Ps: Here’s an apt poem to get you started, by Keats:

When I Have Fears

When I have fears that I may cease to be
Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain,
Before high-piled books, in charactery,
Hold like rich garners the full ripen'd grain;
When I behold, upon the night's starr'd face,
Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,
And think that I may never live to trace
Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance;
And when I feel, fair creature of an hour,
That I shall never look upon thee more,
Never have relish in the faery power
Of unreflecting love;--then on the shore
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think
Till love and fame to nothingness do sink.

Writing for Children (and by Children) & Digital Storytelling

If you are interested in writing for children, one blog that features reviews of lots of kids' books is The Places You Will Go, written by Daphne Lee. It’s a good place to get a quick overview of what’s already out there and to pick up some tips.

You may also want to check out a different approach to creating stories for (and by) children, at The Center for Digital Storytelling. It is a California-based non-profit 501(c)3 arts organization rooted in the art of personal storytelling. They say, "We assist young people and adults in using the tools of digital media to craft, record, share, and value the stories of individuals and communities, in ways that improve all our lives."

One approach is to integrate mapping with digital storytelling. To see how that can work, go to www.storymapping.org. They say, “Whether it is geo-tagging images on Flickr, building story-based GoogleMaps, developing Windows Live virtual tours, organizing local cell phone walking tours, or the permanent imbedding of stories into locations to be received by Bluetooth and other wireless information, we can now create maps that share stories about the places that matter to us, and place our life stories in countless geographic contexts.”

Naturally these methods are not restricted to kids' stories, and you may find yourself getting some new ideas for whatever kind of writing you are doing.

Writer's Block: Could this be a Simple Solution?

As reported in Utne magazine, environmental psychologist Andrea Faber Taylor has uncovered some fascinating information about how contact with nature can relieve anxiety and stress and help the healing process. She points out that 'directed attention' (used for things like making a presentation or writing) makes us tired, while 'involuntary attention' (such as meditating, or looking at nature with no particular end in mind) gives our directed attention a chance to recover.

She cites studies in which patients who could see trees from their hospital beds after having gall bladder surgery needed fewer painkillers and had shorter hospital stays than those who looked out at walls. She did her own study of children living in public housing, comparing those whose apartment overlooked trees and grass with those whose view was pavement. The 'seeing-nature' kids were better able to concentrate and control impulsive behaviour, as measured with standard psychological tests.

I wonder whether this could also, in some cases, be a cure for writer's block. Even if you work and live in the city, you can make time for looking at nature--it can be a park, just some trees, possibly even only a group of plants in your office.

Pitching Your Ideas--the Secret Ingredient

Another interesting fact that Malcolm Gladwell points out in his book, "Blink," is that people never sue doctors they like. There is a strong correlation between the doctor's warmth, the interest he or she takes in the patient, and the amount of time they spend talking to a patient, and whether or not they will ever be sued for malpractice.

In his book, "The Science of Influence," Kevin Hogan points out a similar phenomenon among real estate agents. One of the strongest factors in whether buyers buy from a real estate agent, he says, is whether that agent expresses interest in the client. Hogan's advice: sell the client on YOU first.

The following are some of the strategies and techniques that Hogan suggests. As you read them, consider how they might apply to pitching your ideas:

* Give direct answers to questions and elucidate on how that information will help the client solve their problem. (Another way of saying: always focus on what they need, not on what you need.)

* Given the choice of being brief and simple or long and complex, be brief.

* Show the customer your flexibility and allow the client to stay in his comfort zone.

* If appropriate, give something of perceived value, with a personal touch if possible. (This doesn't mean bribe the person; in my case, it might mean leaving behind a copy of my book, "Do Something Different," for example.)

And one of the easiest ways to come across as likeable may be your simplest secret weapon: a genuine smile.

The (Unconscious) Power of Words

In his entertaining and revealing book, "Blink," Malcolm Gladwell talks about an amazing phenomenon. He describes an experiment in which he gives people a series of five words, and asks them to make four-word sentences out of them. An example might be, "shoes give replace the old" and you might make the sentence, "Replace the old shoes." There are ten such lists. He says, "After you finished that test--believe it or not-- you would have walked out of my office and down the hall more slowly than you walked in. Why? Scattered throughout the list are words like "old, worried, lonely, grey, Bingo, and wrinkle." He says, "I was making the big computer in your brain think about the state of being old." Although you wouldn't notice it consciously, it would still affect your behaviour. A psychologist named John Bargh did a series of such experiments. Some included lists of words that related to rudeness in one set, and patience and kindness in another. Again, he found that it had a major effect on how people behaved shortly afterward.

Obviously, as writers we are in the business of creating moods in our readers, but if you have a scene that doesn't feel strong enough emotionally, it could be worth going through it to see whether you can introduce words that have this kind of unconscious effect.

Screenplays: a New Format?

Berlin Picture Company has released a new multimedia program that they say is a big improvement on current script formats. As you compose the script, the program creates a soundtrack consisting of (automatic) voices reading the dialogue. You can also add music and sound effects, and photos or drawings that represent the action. They claim that this will make it easier for the people reading (and hearing/watching) your script to imagine the final product.

I was not able to try out the program because, for now, it's only available for users of Windows XP. The site says they are working on other versions. I must admit I'm skeptical because I'm not sure that hearing a mechanical voice say, for instance, "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn," or "My daughther--my sister--my daughter--my sister," is going to be more effective than having a reader mentally hearing those words from a character they have been guided to imagine vividly.

On the visual side, I think it will also be very difficult to do anything that will give a richer interpretation than that free, but powerful, tool--the imagination.

But I wouldn't mind being proved wrong. What do YOU think? (PS to Berlin Picture Company re your home page: black print on a dark grey background is not a good idea...)

Book Tour or Blog Tour?

The New York Times has an article on the phenomenon of blog tours--authors who answer questions on blogs instead of doing the traditional book tour.

Almost every account I have ever read of the usual multi-city book-signing tour has described mostly nightmares: nobody shows up, or they show up and drink the free wine but don't buy any books, or their questions are about the wrong book or whether the author has ever met anybody famous. And then there's the local handler who drives you to the wrong branch of the book chain and the skulking psycho who tries to hand you a manuscript about how the Illuminati/Zionist conspiracy/Aliens are controlling reality.

Plus, those kinds of tours are expensive and when you discover that you've been booked into the Motel 8 instead of the Four Seasons, you begin to realize what your publisher actually thinks of you.

After all that, a mere blog tour must be a big relief. And you can do it in your pyjamas.

A Sweet Writing Promotion

Carole Matthews has a sweet promotion coming up for her book, The Chocolate Lover's Club. Chocolatier Thorntons is going to distribute 100,000 samplers of the book through their 378 stores.

The samplers will include a way for customers to win a weekend with Thorntons' master chocolatier. Customers who use Thorntons' online ordering service will have a chance to win a copy of the book, and the author's 20,000 newsletter subscribers will be offered a discount on Thorntons' sweets.

London-based marketing agency mostra set up the promotion with the publishers, Headline, and Thorntons.

It illustrates the ideal circumstances for a promotional collaboration:

* the book and the product are closely linked
* the company or entity you link with has an easy way to reach potential customers (in this case, the store outlets and the website)
* you (the author) also have a way to bring a large number of people to the promotion (in this case, that's her newsletter)
* it's a win-win situation for both parties

This is a major promotional effort, but you may be able to do something more modest when you have a book coming out. It's definitely worth trying to set up something like this to set your book apart from the flood of others.

Writing Quality / Writing Quantity: What's More Important?

Software engineer and entrepreneur Marc Andreeson made a point in one of his speeches that is simple but also very important for any free-lancer to remember.

He said that a crucial elment in innovation is to maximize your quantity. In other words, take more swings at the ball--you'll miss more often but you'll also hit more often.

Sometimes I encounter writers who have one pet project they have been working on forever, trying to perfect it before they put it out into the marketplace. Obviously, quality is important, but you might find that you've spent enormous amounts of time on something that nobody wants. It's better to get it as good as you can in a reasonable period and then test it. Monitor the feedback carefully, you'll soon know whether you need to do further work and what that might be.

And while you're waiting for the feedback, get started on the next project!

Making Time to Write - Make Your Own Loyalty Card

Maybe you have a loyalty card like the one on the left, which is stamped whenever I buy a cup of coffee and gives me the reward of a free coffee when all nine circles have been stamped. As you see, this one is from Caffe Nero, but Starbucks and most other chains have something similar. It gave me an idea: why not use a card like this to help motivate and remind you to write?

You can either make your own, or grab a few blank ones the next time you drop in for a coffee. Every time you have a writing session, check off one of the blanks, and when all of them are checked, give yourself a little treat. If you're not writing often enough, put a deadline on the card--in other words, you only get the treat if you check all of the blanks within a certain period of time.

To make the reward process even more effective, put the reward in the hands of someone else and tell them they can keep it if you fail to meet your goal!

(for more tips, see www.yourwritingcoach.com and www.timetowrite.com) and www.brainstormNet.com

A Look at the Life of a Master Screenwriter

One of my writing heroes is playwright and screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky. One of his Oscar-winning films was "Network." If you haven't seen it (or haven't seen it for a while), have a look. It seems more prescient than ever.

The other day I ran across a 2006 episode of "On the Media," by Sarah Fishko, called "The Angry Man." It's a six-minute audio report on Chayefsky and features qoutes from another angry scriptwriter, Joe Eszterhaus. You can listen to it at: www.onthemedia.org/transcripts/2006/10/27/08 (if you're rather read it, there's a transcript there as well).

Overcome Writers Block With an Overload

In the Shooting People screenwriters network bulletin, Andy Conway refers to an interview he read with the Florian Henkel von Donnsersmark, writer-director of “The Lives of Others.” A teacher of von Donnersmark had his students write 14 treatments in eight weeks. The students didn’t know it at the time, but the teacher didn’t even read them, he threw them away. The point was to build up their writing muscles.

This reminded me of something similar I did when I was starting out. Frustrated that I seemed to be blocked from writing more than a couple of pages a day even when I had time to do more, I decided that I would set myself the challenge of writing an entire screenplay in one long weekend (actually, four days). I was house-sitting for my brother at the time and had no distractions. To make it a bit easier, I decided to use a Rider Haggard novel as my model. The result? A full-length, pretty bad screenplay and one writing block conquered.

If there is an aspect of writing that you’d like to improve, consider using the ‘overload’ method. For example, if you feel your descriptions aren’t very good, spend a day writing nothing but descriptions of things in your house, making them as vivid as possible. If dialogue is your weakness, focus on that. The point is not the quality of this material but overcoming your resistance or fear. It works!

How to be a Part-Time Writer

I've mentioned previously the very useful site, creativity-portal.com, and now I have my own little author's page on the site. It includes two articles you might find useful, one on how to be a successful part-time writer and also my take on the four guidelines for effective brainstorming. Have a look here.

Writing Prompts Card Deck

Do you ever need a little push to come up with a fresh idea? One simple technique is to pick a word or image at random and try to relate it to your challenge. James Bickers has come up with what he calls The Majency Oracle, a 169 card deck of prompts that do the same thing. You can print them out on 3x5 index cards and he offers a full-color version and a "light" version that will save your printer's ink supply. Here are two examples of prompts:

"It only looks like an elevator. It doesn't move."

"Go back to the previous page. There's something you forgot to write down."

Obviously if you draw a blank you can go on to the next one. Rather than printing it out, I just keep it as a file and pick a number at random and go to that page.

You can download it free at www.jamesbickers.com/majency.html, but there's a donation button on his site if you'd like to say thanks.