Just Released: The Black Belt Guide to Internet Presence

Well-trained martial artists concentrate on efficient and powerful moves. No telegraphing, no extraneous movements. Minimum effort for maximum effect.

The Black Belt Guide to Internet Presence will show you how to get the maximum return for the minimal expenditure of your time and talent.

This is what you’re going to do:

• Set up a blog
• Write a series of notes
• Schedule the posts
• Cross-connect it all

Sounds easy, eh? But the ins and outs of how exactly to wire it all are not all that obvious.

You probably already know what Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, LinkedIn, and a few other social media destinations are. You may even have accounts with one of or all of them. If not, don’t worry. They’re very easy to set up.

I focused particularly on writers who want to sell books, so you’ll see a few references to readers and writers and publishing. But this system will work for any subject/cause/ business/obsession. Just substitute the word “clients” when I say readers and “your industry” when I say publishing.

So, if you’re ready for the down and dirty on establishing your internet presence, check out the Black Belt Guide to Internet Presence. Click here!

If you don't take it seriously, no one else will

An egomaniac with an inferiority complex: sound familiar?

If that glove feels just a little too much like it fits, then congratulations -- you're probably a fairly decent writer. Learn to live with the cognitive dissonance because it's gonna be around for a long time.

It's when the two opposites get out of balance that you'll run into problems. If you believe you cannot be taught, that you are GOOD and you don't NEED any editing or feedback or to progress -- you're out of balance. EVERYONE can get better. EVERYONE. Get teachable.

Conversely, if you subordinate your talent to other's needs too often, the Muse will poop on your paper. Muse poop, much like Greyhound poop, is not a good thing. I mean, you could stretch this analogy to the breaking point and talk about how it's good to poop on paper as opposed to the porch or the ungrouted new tile floor in the fireplace room, but seriously -- poop on paper that should contain brilliance is generally bad.

Take your writing seriously. Take yourself and your talent seriously. Humbly, but seriously.

And don't listen to nonwriters who think this is nonsense. If you're a writer, you know what I'm talking about.

Internet Road Kill: Dead Blogs

Nothing worse than a dead blog. But blogging/tweeting/posting status/bulletins/pages -- it all takes a lot of time and creative energy.

I've finally come up with a system -- and no, it's not some cheesy MLM auto-friender or something like that. It's simply the easiest way I've found to interconnect all my "stuff" -- Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, and listserves -- to reach the most people with the least effort. Took me a while to puzzle out all the interconnections and third party add ons, but I think I've got it now!

There's an ebook on it on http://bamwriters.com.

(And if I'd followed my own advice last week, my blogs wouldn't be out of date! Catching up tomorrow!)

Smashwords

Most of us know about Kindle and a few other ebook formats. But how many are there, really? And how to reach all those markets without spending hours reformatting for each particular reader?

Solution: http://smashwords.com Smashwords will translate your WORD document into multiple ebook formats and pays high royalties, non-exclusive sales agreement. Check it out. Brilliant stuff.

Smells and bells and the first person.

 Common problem: a writer decides to tell a story in first person and then fails to exploit the full capabilities of that POV.

 

How do you know if you're doing this?

 

Look for passages where you attribute sensory experiences, e.g. I smelled, I heard, I  saw. Lose the attributions and place your reader directly inside your character's head.

 

Wrong: I smelled gunpowder.

Right: The room stank of gunpowder.

 

Wrong: I heard the bells ringing.

Right: The bells rang.

 

Same thing with feelings. If you have sentences that start, "I felt...," rewrite them to place the reader directly in the character's head.

 

Wrong: I felt worried.

Right: It wasn't going to be all right. It would never be all right.

 

See? Stay in the character's head, not outside it.

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POV and Distance from Character

Everybody knows what POV is, right? Point of View. Or, if you're in the military, Privately Owned Vehicle. (This will explain a lot of my confusion early on.)

 

POV is fairly easily mastered. You stay in one head in one scene, right? No telling the story from a female protagonist's point of view and then having her boyfriend do a "he thought" attribution in the same scene. That's not rocket science.

 

The more subtle issue is distance from the character. Let me give you a few examples:

 

Jason was wondering what the funny green bird was called.

I wonder what that funny green bird is called, Jason thought.

I wonder what that funny green bird is?

What's that funny green bird?

 

Do you see how these progress from rather distant to close in?

 

Once you get close, you can't pull back. That's the general rule.

 

The reason is that you'll jar the reader. After all, you've gone to a lot of trouble to get your reader to identify with your characters and suspend disbelief and buy the entire world you're creating. You've got them inside this character's head, along for the ride, then BOOM! You pull back from the character. That jars the reader out of the story and undoes everything you've tried to achieve.

 

So don't do it.

 

Tomorrow: Smells and bells and the first person.

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Want a few tips on writing?

"I'd love to buy you lunch and pick your brain."

Can't tell you how often I hear that. It's normally the follow up to a few emails in which new writers ask me to take a look at their works and give them a few pointers.

Tips, they're usually called. You know what tips are. Those succinct little tidbits that will solve writers' career dilemmas: no one wants to publish their stuff.

Sorry. No royal road to it. You put in a few million words and then yeah, you'll be able to make use of a few pointers. You'll have reached the level of conscious incompetence.

What most folks mean by tips is this: teach me to write well. After all, it's just a bunch of words and we all started mastering that at around age 2 or so, right? How hard can it be?

If you'd like me to teach you to write, take one of the classes. Or hire me to do it. Because honestly, while I love lunch out with friends, there are a few problems with the whole lunch and brain picking scenario.

1. It's worth more than lunch
2. It takes longer than lunch.
3. Ruins the meal to talk about bad writing and teach at the same time.
   
4. Until you've put in the time in front of the keyboard, it won't help.

It's like law. Just because it's in English, don't assume you understand it.

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