writing

Marketing for Writers

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I’ve just posted a new link on my blog to The Creative Penn http://www.thecreativepenn.com/, a blog by Joanna Penn, an Australian writer, whose blog was voted one of the top ten for writers in 2011. Her online, free course titled Author2.0 details the myriad ways an author can promote herself and her writing, and make some money along the way.

She has also posted a video introduction to the course, available here: http://bit.ly/DjL1M. Joanne is an engaging and enthusiastic speaker, who manages to make the online and offline marketing world clearer.

The development of a blog, a website, a facebook page, a twitter account, a linkedin presence etc and so on is daunting, but Joanne makes it all seem possible.

I’ve just sent off Book 3 of my Dangerous Journeys series, entitled No Motive for Murder and set in modern-day Bermuda, but as in all Anne McPhail’s adventures with perilous links to the past, to the publisher. I’ll keep progress detailed here.

In the meantime, below are the links to Anne’s first two journeys.

http://preview.tinyurl.com/7antbxm Write Words Inc.com
http://preview.tinyurl.com/7wdtnwu My Amazon.com page

Writers’ Retreat: Spring Thaw

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I just spent a lovely, productive weekend at Spring Thaw, a retreat organized and facilitated by Ruth E. Walker and Gwyn Scheltema of Writescape.

The Venue: Elmhirst Resort on Rice Lake near Keene, Ontario. http://elmhirst.ca, a comfortable old resort complete with separate cottages, a salt-water pool, a work-out room and a masseuse with “magic fingers”( so I am reliably informed}

We had two dinners and a fabulous brunch, the latter worth the drive. Elmhirst has a deserved reputation for its expansive dessert table.

Ruth and Gwynn generously catered the rest of our meals in their cottage where the conversation ranged from the progress of the writing, to the business of publishing to the merits of George Clooney as an actor.

They gave us unfettered time to write and think and walk, talk if we chose, to other writers, or silence to listen to the lake and the birds.

Each of them blue-pencilled ten pages of work for each of us and one-on-one, invaluable sessions that combined encouragement and critique.

The other writers: a range from the never-published to the soon-to-be published to those making a living by their pen. The most extraordinary voices emerged from unexpected people.

This was my second retreat with Ruth and Gwynn. It won’t be my last.

My Guest Blog

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Richard Bylina invited me to guest blog at http://rickbylina.blogspot.com/. Please visit his always engaging blog on writing and check out his insightful book reviews.

Sunday

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The myth of Tory economic performance – The Globe and Mail.

Check out Lawrence Martin’s assessment of the Harper record. The out-of-control cuts and spending left us with a deficit where there had been a surplus. Martin puts it all together in this fine article. Politics is ever the same. The politicians “spin”, trying to convince us that up is down, black is white and guys who denied the economic downturn in ’08 are somehow our saviours in ’12.

Writing: I’m working on book three in my Dangerous Journey’s series. Anne is in Bermuda this time, fending off a police detective who thinks that Anne is a killer, and a killer who thinks she’s a nuisance that needs to be eliminated. I hope to be finished by the end of March, so watch for it next fall. Title, as always, pending.

Reading; I finished The Hare with the Amber Eyes, by Edmund de Waal. De Waal writes the biography of his family’s collection of netsuke and through it a memoir of his family of Russian Jewish bankers and their sad fate at the hands of Austrian Nazis. A fascinating and moving story, and a very good read.

Writers’ Retreat/Turning Leaves

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i spent the weekend at a writers’ retreat—Turning Leaves—at the Fern Resort on beautiful Lake Couchiching. Writescape, a joint enterprise of Ruth E. Walker and Gwynn Scheltema who produced the event and taught. http://writescape.ca/writescape/

The resort itself is old, turn of the nineteenth century old, but with modern amenities, at least in the section we inhabited. The spacious room assigned to me overlooked the long breakwater out into the lake, and the ducks and geese that lived within the calm waters. It faced west, with glorious sunsets.

I have stayed in resorts that promised a fireplace in every room, only to be disappointed by the ersatz fire with its electrically-produced flames. Not this time. A genuine log-burning fireplace, with supplied artificial(and therefore easily started) logs.

Otherwise—clean, comfortable, spacious. My only quibble concerned the lack of electrical outlets for my various electronic devices. I solved that one by unplugging the clock, substituting my phone. It has a reliable alarm clock!

We met in the same building which provided a boardroom and a spacious living room(yet another fireplace), supplied with coffee, tea, juices, snacks, comfortable chairs and good lighting.

The package included three meals a day which were delicious and generous. My only complaint would be that the distance from the kitchen to our small dining room meant some dishes arrived, not cool but not hot either.

Poet and author Jonathan Bennett filled in at last minute for a scheduled guest speaker Barry Dempster. He spoke on point of view, a subject I find very interesting as was the discussion that followed. He also read some of his own work, including his award-winning poetry and answered questions about the writing life.

What else—free writing time, lots of it; workshops which we could attend, or not; discussions at meal times with other writers; the privilege of talking with Gwynn and Ruth.

Writescape. What a resource for writers.

Writing

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I’ve started on a project suggest by James Scott Bell in his book Plot and Structure in the Write Great Fiction series from Writers Digest Books. Essentially it’s a method for internalizing plot structure. it involves reading and then analyzing the structure of six novels of a type you would like to write. It will take time away from the actual writing of the sequel to The Facepainter Murders. It’s close to completion, but will need a rewrite for the second (or 10th) draft. I tend to revise as I go along, but I think, after reading Bell’s book, that I should consider just writing, and revising with a second draft of the whole thing. That is for the next book, however.

If you’re a writer or want to be one and haven’t looked at this series of books on writing, I’d recommend it.

Our lovely fall resurgence of summer seems to be over. The temperature is falling and so is the rain. A good time to begin my reading.

Another plan is to catalogue the books in this house and they are everywhere. Fortunately, I have a program on my Mac, called Delicious Library 2, that uses the InSight camera to read the bar codes on the books and record them in a library format.

I was glad to see that the Saudi King had the good sense to rein in the driving police or whoever they are that wanted to flog that woman in Saudi who dared to ?!drive a car. How subversive. And how sad that so many countries can’t or won’t understand that they and their people will never advance while keeping more than half their population unengaged.

Sakineh is still in prison. Please sign the petition. http://freesakineh.org/

Summer, cont.

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Summer:

Gardening: Our hot, very hot and mostly dry summer continues. The garden, all except the roses is loving it, since we are able to water it from the river that flows past our home. The roses fear they have been transplanted to the deep South and have shut down production until more reasonable conditions return. Daylilies, hostas, echinacea, clematis and blue mallow are the stars of the moment.

I planted delphinums and staked them moments before a battering thunderstorm went through, so they are standing and about to bloom. I understand they are short-lived, so I will buy more next year to ensure a good clump.

Writing: Finally the last revisions are done, and the Facepainter has gone off to be set for paper production. Meanwhile, I’m at work on the sequel. A new character has stepped forward and I have to find something for her to do.

Do you know the organization called Great Courses. They finally have released a dedicated Canadian catalogue and some of the professors will be Canadian as well. Find them at http://www.thegreatcourses.com/ I followed one of their courses called Building Great Sentences, and now I’m doing a 30 lecture series on Analysis and Critique, How to engage and write about anything. The lecturer is excellent, my only quibble being that the lecture ends too soon.

Italy: We’re talking with our travelling companions about a trip in the fall of 2012 that would see us spending a few days in Venice, while they celebrate their fortieth anniversary, and then a road trip to Vienna, where we spend a few days to a week.

I’ve been studying Italian, through Rosetta Stone for several years now, with a year’s break to learn some rudimentary Spanish. I began again at the beginning with Italian and now approach the end of the third dvd. I received four and five at Christmas so I will press on. Learning a language, besides good for travelling, is supposed to be good for brain health.

Politics: Very sad news about Jack Layton. To be struck down like that in his moment of achievement is truly tragic.

What is going on with the Americans? They are just recovering from an economic disaster and now want to plunge into another one. Where are the adults?

That’s about it: writing, gardening, learning. Retirement is great!

Summer

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Today I’m bringing the blog up to date on writing, photography and gardening, especially gardening.

This month I finished the revisions of the galley proofs for the print on demand edition of The Facepainter Murders. Revisiting work is always tough, because the errors are glaring, the ability to change it minimal, and the time consumed to check each period and comma and tense exorbitant. Especially the tenses!

I’m also working on my as yet untitled sequel which takes Anne McPhail to Bermuda. About three-quarters finished as of today, but still a draft or maybe two to go. This time Anne is a suspect when she witnesses a murder and can’t convince the investigating detective of her innocence.

I’m still learning how to use my new camera, and yearning for a telephoto lens. We left our birdfeeder up for the summer and have had many species that are new to us arrive. The vivid orange variety of house finch and his cousin the purple finch and families are currently in residence, replacing the delightful rose-breasted grosbeak of last month. They are all easily startled so I’ve been trying photograph from inside the house. Recently my brother and I went up to the Ottawa Valley. On a bush road near Barrett Chute we came upon this deer, having lunch in the ditch.

Gardening has  become a joint venture, and this summer has been busy with a new retaining wall to build, or rather supervise.

Victoria Lister Carley, landscape architect

Rosepark Landscaping.

We are delighted with the result, and I have a brand-new garden to plant!

So that’s about it: writing, gardening, taking pictures, and oh yes, still trying to learn Italian.

The Writer’s Chores

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A few short years ago, a writer  expected to write, submit, work with an in-house editor not only on the minutia of the galley proofs but also on the book itself. A good editor could help turn a so-so book, a pig’s ear of story into a silk purse. Not today; not unless you are an important author all ready. The chores of today’s beginners include: sending a polished manuscript to the publisher, which needs little in the way of revision; designing or helping to design the cover; inventing a marketing plan; garnering quotes for the book; revising the galley proofs; writing and releasing a press release…the list goes on.

In my case, because my current book, The Facepainter Murders has all ready been released electronically, I am at the revising the galley proofs stage. This involves a line by line review, to catch everything from spelling errors(few) to consideration of the proper use and punctuation of the em dash. Until recently I didn’t know the em dash had a name, much less rules about its use. Now I’m on familiar terms with Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style, and recently had another look at Eats, Shoots, and Leaves, Lynn Truss’s amusing and informative little book about the comma.

At the same time, I’m writing the third book in this series, taking protagonist Anne McPhail to Bermuda, as well as revising another non-series book.

No money to be made at my level in the book-writing business, but it’s excellent at keeping the brain going, and I hope forging new connections.

Check out Nancy Pratt’s blog– http://nancyhereandthere.wordpress.com/2011/05/13/basket-weaving-and-vote-counting for her accounts of travels in Ecuador, and her photos of the people of Ecuador

“Harper’s” government

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http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/lawrence-martin/on-the-road-to-the-harper-governments-tipping-point/article1933110/

Lawrence Martin reminds us of the multiple offenses against democracy that have taken place since the Conservatives came to power. The tag line–there’s more to come– expanded over the last two days into a scandal about misusing government funds in the last election. This government and these ministers take responsibility right up to the point of being found out and then they scarper and blame a junior minister or a civil servant.

Oda, Kenney, Harper himself, all of them have the same haughty attitude of “if we doit, it must be good”. No responsibility, no resignations.

Even the Globe and Mail, who never saw a Tory government it couldn’t support, rails this morning about the lack of transparency( you and I would call it lying) about the cost of their “tough on crime” agenda. Even the “lock ’em up and throw away the keys” boys in the US have woken up to the fact that it costs megabucks to incarcerate people for minor crimes as has happened under the three strike law. One in every hundred Americans is in jail.

But the cost is one thing. Incarceration is a failure at reducing the number of reoffenders, at rehabilitation, at treating the mental illnesses that bring so many into conflict with the law. Why spend huge amounts on something that doesn’t work and won’t make our society any safer? Why? It’s called buying your vote with your money. Oh, and we don’t know what the bill will be because they won’t tell us.

Have you seen the Harper attack ads. Remember them from last time? They’re recycling stuff that they ran years ago, referencing events from the beginning of Michael Ignatieff’s return to this country. Apparently they haven’t yet got over the fact that he is a man with international experience, compared to their man, little-travelled until he came to power. Lawrence Martin reminds us that the ones they released this time have been withdrawn because they were of “such questionable quality.” How low can they sink?

Abuse of power. “L’Etat, c’est moi. That’s the Harper gang.

Writing: I’ve been working on the sequel to The Facepainter Murders, http://www.writewordsinc.com/and http://www.amazon.com., and recently joined the novel section of my online writing group. A no-hold-barred bunch they are, and very helpful. http://www.internetwritingworkshop.org/

My short story, Homicide in Haliburton has been published by Pine Tree Mysteries at this link.  http://www.pinetreemysteries.com/index.html

Writing is a craft, with a learning curve that I certainly didn’t understand when I started out twelve years ago. I’ve been reading Scene and Structure, by Jack Bickman, part of the Elements of Fiction Writing, published by Writers Digest Books, to learn some of the formal mechanics of constructing a novel.

Sakineh: She languishes in prison. Her sentence to stoning has been reversed, but she may still be hanged. Her lawyer is in exile, having been tortured in prison and she has given a “confession”. Please sign the petition.

http://freesakineh.org/