How to avoid boring your readers following “what you know” writing rules by E. J. Runyon I just finished reading Anne’s March post about how you don’t always want to follow the rule that advises, ‘Write What You Know’. It made me wonder how many writers understand that it’s only a ‘Writing Rule’ for getting …
read more https://annerallen.com/2019/04/writing-rules-write-what-you-know/
LANSING, May 11 — Michigan is one of the worst in the nation for library access, ranking 47th for its student-to-school librarian ratio, according to the Michigan Education Association, the state’s largest union of teachers and other school personnel. Experts say it’s no coincidence that the state also ranks fifth worst In the nation for literacy.
But that could change under legislation that would require all Michigan public schools to maintain a library and hire a certified.
The three bills — sponsored by Reps. Matt Koleszar, D-Plymouth; Darrin Camilleri, D-Brownstown Township; and Kristy Pagan, D-Canton — would also require schools to have a supervisor to monitor students in the librarian’s absence. They mirror a package introduced in 2018 that never made it out of the House Education Reform Committee.
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How many times have you heard that mainstream media outlets don’t review self-published books?
That statement is both true and false.
It’s true that most mainstream media outlets aren’t interested in self-published books that:
That doesn’t mean you can’t get your self-published book reviewed by the big guys, though. You just have to know what you’re doing, from beginning to end.
Here’s what you need to get around the “we don’t review self-published books” obstacle.
read more https://buildbookbuzz.com/we-dont-review-self-published-books/
The Michigan Barber School knows the ability to read is essential to a child’s success today and in the future. So with that in mind on May 4 it will join Barbershop Books to promote literacy in its shop.
Barbershop Books is a community-based program that creates child-friendly reading spaces in barbershops and provides early literacy training to barbers across the U.S. The goal is to help black boys ages 4-8 identify as readers by connecting books and reading to a male-centered space, and by involving black men in boys’ early reading experiences.
Sometimes I compare my job as a writer to his and I wonder if I’m bringing enough value to the world and helping enough people. Genevieve Parker-Hill The above quote comes from a wonderful post called Write the Book, Save the World.
Don’t panic. It doesn’t have to be hard… and it can actually be very rewarding. As a self-published author, I knew I needed to create my own brand and find an audience for myself. Over the past year I have committed to intentionally enhancing my online presence. And it has REALLY made a difference! If you’re thinking of doing the same, here are the first few steps I took to get started:
I first met Ann Arbor author Lara Zielin years ago when she was on a YA author panel at Nicola’s Books. Flash forward a few years and she had three published young adult novels with Penguin Random House and four contemporary romance novels written as Kim Amos. From the outside, she was living the writer’s dream, but behind the scenes she was struggling on a very bumpy path that many writers know all too well. Read on to learn more about how Lara navigated these challenges by “storyifying” her life. She’ll show you how you can do it too.
read more http://scbwimithemitten.blogspot.com/2019/04/author-your-life-by-lara-zielin.html
Being able to say they’ve written a book is, if we’re being honest, what most aspiring writers really want. Which is understandable — the first time I ever finished writing something, I wanted to tell everyone I knew and didn’t know. And I probably did.
It’s not that writers don’t enjoy writing. They often just … don’t want to do the work. Or they do a bunch of work and don’t feel like they’re any closer to meeting their goals.
Writing a book isn’t just about having an idea and saying you’re going to do it. You actually have to take this thing one day at a time until you’ve actually done it. Which is, uh … difficult. But totally possible all the same.
By Shanna Swendson, @ShannaSwendson
Part of The Writer’s Life Series
JH: Finding time to write is a challenge many writers face–even when writing is their full-time job. Please help me welcome Shanna Swendson to the lecture hall today, to share a tip that helped her optimize her writing life.
Shanna Swendson earned a journalism degree from the University of Texas but decided it was more fun to make up the people she wrote about and became a novelist. She’s written a number of fantasy novels for teens and adults, including the Enchanted, Inc. series and the Rebel Mechanics series. She devotes her spare time to reading, knitting, and music.
Website | Twitter | Facebook | Goodreads
Take it away Shanna…
I’ve been on a kick lately of trying to optimize my writing life—improve my productivity, increase creativity, and find a better work/life balance. I’ve been reading books, listening to lectures, looking at what other writers do, and trying the new things I’ve learned. This year, I’ll be sharing some of my discoveries here at Fiction University.
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| Shanna Swendson |
Productivity has been a big emphasis for me because getting more writing done is key to my career goals. I have so many things I want to write, and that means finding the time to write them. I’ve found that scheduling is one of the best ways to find more writing time. This applies whether you’re trying to fit writing around a full-time job or writing full-time. No matter how much available time you have, stuff seems to fill that time, and it’s not always the stuff you want to focus on.
One way that making a schedule can help is by concentrating all your decisions into one session. Studies about willpower have shown that the more decisions you have to make, the lower your willpower.
read more http://blog.janicehardy.com/2019/02/scheduling-for-writing-success.html
Louise Tondeur helps you find time to write
Wouldn’t all authors benefit from more writing time in their day? Open University Creative Writing tutor and author Louise Tondeur offer top tips to help you manage and expand your writing time, to boost your productivity and personal satisfaction with your writing life.
read more https://selfpublishingadvice.org/find-more-time-to-write/
The post How to Get Moving Again When You Feel Stuck appeared first on ProBlogger.
This post is based on episode 158 of the ProBlogger podcast.
Do you ever feel stuck in your blogging or your business?
I think many of us can relate to feeling paralysed at times – not just with blogging or business, but in other areas of life as well.
You might feel stuck and unable to move forward because:
I can certainly relate to a lot of things on that list. I can get stuck when I have so many ideas that I can’t decide what to do first. Fear is also a big one for me. I worry what other people will think of me, how I’ll sound, how I’ll come across, what might happen if I make a mistake, and so on.
by Shawn Proctor
*Winning not guaranteed.
In project management, the key is to begin with the end in mind. So maybe I should have foreseen that my flash story “A Good Egg” would be a winner of the 2017 Podcastle Flash Fiction Contest and would go on to become published by Flash Fiction Online as a reprint. Unfortunately, writing with the end goal in mind has never worked for me.
Instead, here’s a template I follow when entering any fiction contest:
read more: https://www.sfwa.org/2019/03/how-to-win-a-short-fiction-contest/
by Anne R. Allen In a much-shared article titled “Why Your Memoir Won’t Sell,” former Writer’s Digest editor Jane Friedman listed the things that will trigger an agent or publisher to reject a memoir by a non-celebrity. A lot of people working on memoirs have been pretty discouraged by it.
read more https://annerallen.com/2019/04/how-to-write-memoir/
For years I regarded writing retreats as an extravagance. The idea of going on one sounded like a dream, but I could never quite justify the expense. After all, I work from home in a quiet, comfortable office. My schedule allows me to split my time between freelance and fiction projects. And I have few distractions, aside from my team of racing pigeons—though the few minutes a day it takes to fill their water tank and food dish and exercise them hardly count as a distraction. So, why pay good money to go on a writing retreat when I have nothing to retreat from?
read more https://writerunboxed.com/2019/02/23/how-to-plan-a-diy-writing-retreat/
Your book cover design is an essential part of your book marketing strategy. Today author and graphic designer AD Starrling discusses how to make the most of the cover design you’ve worked so hard to get right.
Cover attracts, copy sells.I can’t recall where exactly I first read this eye-opening line but I now live by this motto as both a writer and a designer.
When it comes to selling books, there is no doubt that an eye-catching cover that fits your main genre and targets your ideal reader is an important element to get right.
There are dozens of articles out there by some very big names in our industry about how changing covers changed their sales figures and in some cases, their entire careers.
read more https://www.thecreativepenn.com/2019/02/27/how-to-use-your-book-cover-to-sell-more-books/
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