A Mother's Death

Thanks for your patience and kind messages. The emergency concerned my mother suddenly falling ill. On a few hours notice I managed to cross the country to her bedside and ease her out of this life. At almost 89 years old, she was ready for the next step, very tired of living. For all my poking fun at my Midwestern roots, I must say that I was surrounded by a group of caring, supportive neighbors, Mother's friends, and remarkable medical professionals. I'm grateful we only endure this once, and I don't know how I would have coped without the kindness of many relative strangers. I left San Diego as one woman and returned as another, changed profoundly by my experiences with these kind and generous people.

Temporary Hiatus

If there had been time, I would have explained the sudden lapse in current posts. As my dear Constant Readers have guessed, a true family emergency has called me to other duties. In the meantime, you can enjoy past entries. If you please, compare the earliest ones (almost two years ago) with the current ones. Leave comments as to the quality of the posts--better, worse, something else? What would you like to see more often, less frequently? Back soon. Georganna

Poets&Writers Podcasts

Poets&Writers online now offers these podcasts:

Joshua Beckman reads from Shake
Janice Erlbaum reads from Girlbomb
Terese Svoboda reads from Tin God
How to Publish Your Short Story: Panel Discussion
Sigrid Nunez reads from The Last of Her Kind

[podcasts]

Textalyser

The Textalyser website offers online tools for text analysis, wordcount, keyword density analysis and prominence analysis. It provides:

the detailed statistics of your text, perfect for translators (quoting), for webmasters (ranking) or for normal users, to know the subject of a text. Now with new features as the analysis of words groups, finding out the keyword density, analyse the prominence of word or expressions. Webmasters can analyse the links on their pages.

Still smarting from the last text analysis I did with this blog, I thought I might get better (higher reading level) results with this service. I plugged in the URL for Writer's Edge and studied the dismal returns, thinking I should change the name to Writing for Dummies. Then I noticed the window for entering a passage to be analyzed showed the template rather than the displayed page. It didn't even have the posts' text to scrutinize. Maybe that's what happened with the previous analysis. Make the title Writing by Dummy. [text analysis]

Narcilinks and Greyblogs

I think I've posted previously about narciposts a term I found in Wired magazine. And then there were splogs (spam blogs). Well, I've discovered a slimy new creature crawled up out of the muck: the NARCILINK. It looks like a nice ordinary link to your blog, but when you click on it (just for fun, no ego-stroking allowed) eh, violets! It opens an old post in which you mentioned the very blog you came from and/or it's owner. Gee, thanks. And you wonder why I haven't included a reciprocal link to your blog?

Sidebar: Commenting "great post!" and leaving a link to your blog falls into the narcipost litter box. It's not proper blogetiquette. If you're going to comment, and there's nothing wrong with doing it as marketing for your own blog, do so with something substantive that adds to the conversation, please. I admit to this fault, though I do honestly try to write more than "haha!" at the Ballpoint Wren's yard. It's just that I'm usually so busy laughing ...

This brings me to what John Bailey is calling "gray blogs" on his website about plagiarism. He's absolutely right. This is where I find many posts from Writer's Edge, uncomfortably nestled among AdSense ads, maybe with a link to here that you can barely see (dark blue font on dark blue background), republished in it's entirety without permission. [blogging]

Novel Publishing

The Gothamist has a fascinating look at the novelist's life in an interview with M.J. Rose :

The writer, Rachel Kramer Bussel, asked: "What would you recommend to an author who's gone through rejection after rejection and is at their wits end as to what to do with the novel they know is brilliant but isn't getting picked up? Would self-publishing or serializing online be advantageous, or should they keep sending it out?"

Ms. Rose responded: "I'd write a second book. I wouldn't self-publish in this environment until I'd really tried to get more than one book published. There is just so much fiction being self-published it's getting harder and harder to break out." She writes erotica, among others.

She points out that half the 195,000 books published each year are self-published. Competition for notice is fierce. Rose said, "It's why in the fall of 2005 I created Authorbuzz.com. It gets the word out about videos, reviews, and author contests--to over 330,00 readers, 10,000 librarians and 1200 booksellers. It's an affordable channel--and the first of its kind." [books]

Executive Summaries

Guy Kawasaki is a prodigious business writer, famous for Art of the Start and other books. His blog carries the amusing subtitle, "Blogger. n. Someone with nothing to say writing for someone with nothing to do." Not hardly, as we used to say back home in the Midwest. Last month Kawasaki offered Bill Reichert's thoughts on The Art of the Executive Summary. It has applicability beyond the capital-seeking presentations to which he referred. Key components:

1. The Grab
2. The Problem
3. The Solution
4. The Opportunity
5. Your Competitive Advantage
6. The Model
7. The Team
8. The Promise ($$)
9. The Ask

This sounds like good advice for any type of persuasive writing. I'm thinking of those pro bono pieces freelancers often do at the beginning of their careers, helping nonprofits raise funds. Elements could also apply to advertising copy writing, pitching your services to potential clients ... read it and add imagination.[nonfiction writing]

San Diego Spring

This morning, peering through the blinds
To find a sparrow singing,
I spot doves nesting in two pots,
And fragrant jasmine clinging.
Kalaidescope colors graced the yard--
Pink hawthorn, mock orange in cream.
Now bachelor buttons in blue, and
Forget-me-nots, too, grace the place
I live and breathe and view.

[poetry]

Targeted Publicity

Paul Krupin, who created ImediaFAX Custom Targeted Publicity, has redesigned his website and renamed it Direct Contact PR. He's offering his $37.95 book Trash Proof News Releases (all 224 pages) as a FREE download. You'll need to have Adobe Reader for the .PDF file. It includes:

Getting Publicity, Ten Tips to Using E-Mail to Get News Coverage, Getting Your Books Reviewed, Getting Publicity for Web Sites, Improved News Release Response with Tip Sheet Offers, Getting on Radio Talk Shows, Finding a Good Publicist, Fax vs. E-Mail News Releases, News Release Contact Protocols, Query Letters, Following Up with Media

[marketing]

ResearchBuzz: Google Scholar Enhancement -- Recent Articles

Good news from Tara Calishain, Mistress of Research Buzz, who alerted us to an important post in the Google Blog. Ms. Calishain interprets in Google Scholar Enhancement -- Recent Articles:

If you haven't used Google Scholar, play around with it a little bit. Search results include the ability to see who is citing a particular paper, view the article as HTML (if available) view a cached version of the article (if available), do a Web search for the title and author of a result, and the ability to search external sources (WorldCat and British Library direct) for copies of articles, books, and periodicals.

resource

Poetry Incentives

Just in time to miss posting during National Poetry Month, came this announcement that Poets & Writers Establishes the Jackson Poetry Prize:

Poets & Writers is marking National Poetry Month by establishing a new, major award for poets. The Jackson Poetry Prize will honor an American poet of exceptional talent who has published at least one book of recognized literary merit but has not yet received major national acclaim. After the Lannan Foundation's Literary Fellowships, the Jackson Poetry Prize of $50,000 will be the largest award for an early to mid-career poet. The prize is designed to provide what all poets need--time and the encouragement to write.

Does money given in advance spur you on to become more productive? Do you craft better poetry while sitting on a cushion of cash, like Miss Muffet? I'm not a working poet. I've never been able to crank one out on demand, or even with the lure of a prize. For me, poems arrive like babies, squalling, "Here I come, ready or not." If they're good--very, very good--I might enter them into a competition, post partum. [poetry]

Blogger Indonesia

Another attractive and interesting blog I came across is Blogger Indonesia A. Fatih Syuhud Weblog:

A. Fatih Syuhud
Location:Political Science &, Researcher on Islamic Studies New Delhi-India, Indonesia
"In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principles, stand like a rock." - Thomas Jefferson :: I'd love to see many more Indonesian bloggers blog in English, the most-widely-understood world language. So that the world knows and understands more about Indonesia by reading anything written by Blogger Indonesia

I second Fatih's urging. I'd like to understand the Indonesian culture and people, especially as expressed in their own English words. [blogging]

Google Co-op

This post could also be titled "Google Goes Social!" Unveiled yesterday, Google Co-op is a combo social bookmarks, tagging, DIY vertical search retooling.

Google Co-op is about sharing expertise. You can contribute your expertise and benefit when others do the same. Help other users find information more easily by creating "subscribed links" for your services and labeling webpages around the topics you know best.

Here are some topics currently being developed:

Destination Guides
Health
Autos
Computer & Video games
Photo & Video equipment
Stereo & Home theater

[research]

Website Marketing

It's no secret that last week I raced to complete a very simple, informational website for author Chris Holmes, M.D. From getting the domain name and hosting, to SEO for his home page, this baby's mine! This author is so intent on his writing, that he doesn't want be involved in selling his books through his website. He doesn't want the site to be a marketing tool ... yet. He did choose to let me optimize the home/index page for search engine efficiency and effectiveness. And that was the last action I took, so it's still on my mind. If SEO and SEM (search engine marketing) are terra incognita for you, a good way to start is by learning the words associated with the activities. The Best in Website Marketing blog has a handy glossary. While you're there, you might want to learn more about a term strangely missing from the glossary entries, keywords, in their article, Five Ways to Choose the Right Keywords and Have Your Website Hopping. [websites]

Handmade Journals

Last month I posted on bookbinding, and Tery Brouwer commented that she does this frequently. I looked at her work on Always Thinking of You and asked her to tell us how she makes this craftsy magic. Tery says:

I came across an article about Ernest Hemingway. They showcased a picture of his desk. It was filled with handmade journals and cards. A desk I yearned to have. At my local library an 87 year-old man named Richard Appel was conducting a workshop on bookbinding. I learned how to bookbind and make handmade journals. Now, my desk is filled with handmade writing novelties that I will cherish forever.

There is an easy way to make handmade journals (softcover.)

Materials needed are: 40 sheets of 8 ½ X 11 inch paper (any color), cardstock, charms, and hemptwine.

Fold 4 pieces of paper and nestle them inside each other. This is called a signature. Repeat 9 more times until you have a pile of 10 signatures. Enclose them with a folded piece of cardstock for the cover. With a hole puncher, starting about ¾ inch from the edges, punch 6 holes in 3 sets of 2 holes. The 2 holes should be 1 inch apart, and each set should be 2 1/2 inches apart. Place all signatures and the front and back cover in one pile. Slip hemptwine through the holes and tie a knot behind the journal. Add some charms and color for pizzazz!

It's easier to understand if you look at the picture.


Tery also provided a handy link to instructions with a diagram, much appreciated by uncraftsy folks like me. We should note that she is also a writer--instructs two workshops for Suite101.com, writes three blogs, and authored Rainbow Wishes and Colorful Dreams: A Self-Discovery Journal for Mothers and Daughters Celebrating Life. [books]

Babblefish

Yahoo! Search recently announced in its blog the acquisition of the Babblefish translation service from Altavista. Read about it in Yahoo! Search blog: Say "Hello" to my little friend. I tried having the "old" Babblefish on this blog, but it slowed down the page loading so much, I had to take it out. Here's hoping Yahoo! does better with it.

[resource]

Chick-Lit Pandemic

According to NY Times essayist, Rachel Donadio in The Chick-Lit Pandemic

regional varieties of chick lit have been sprouting, buoyed by the demographic that's both their subject and readership: 20- and 30-something women with full-time jobs, discretionary income and a hunger for independence and glamour.

She rounds up examples of this genre across the globe, noting that

While "Le Journal de Bridget Jones" has been popular in France, the country hasn't produced many of its own chick lit authors. (Either readers are too sophisticated or, with a 35-hour work week, maybe they just can't relate.) Nor is chick lit terribly popular in Japan, where women lean toward weepy adolescent love stories or darker literary fiction that deals with the "isolation and the meaninglessness of modern urban life; boredom and frustration with men and relationships and marriage, and the constraints put on women in Japanese society," according to Hamish Macaskill, a literary agent in Tokyo.

I guess the French are just too cool for school, and Japanese chicklets are too busy with anime and electronics, huh? [fiction]

Disturbing Words

Georgie Anne Geyer * wrote in her syndicated column:

The most disturbing thing about this year's May Day was how these mostly illegal aliens, and some others, corrupted the language disturbingly, as did the communists.

Calling them "undocumented" does not change their status from "illegal", nor is "amnesty" to be granted by someone's demands. Close to home here in San Diego, I had been unable to comprehend demonstrations on this (U.S.) side of the border featuring Mexican flags. Isn't that the country these people hate so much that they're willing to risk their lives sneaking across the border?

How did this May Day refusal to work or attend school demonstrate economic power? It was in no way a boycott. All it meant to me was that a new client and I found three closed restaurants when we met. Despite the rocky start, he's contracted with me to edit his book. As Georgie Anne pointed out, the Mexicans' rally did not resemble "the great civil rights struggle in America" of the colored/Negro/black/African Americans then suffering the effects of slavery.

* Sound-alike in name and sister N.U. alumna.

[words]

The Doctor is In

The Writer's Almanac, from which I draw inspiration and information for many posts, has a new image in its newsletter. Although it has been offered in audio format for some time, the Almanac has jumped on the "podcast" bandwagon. Sleepy ol' Garrison Keillor doesn't let the grass grow very long under his feet. Today he reminds us it is Sigmund Freud's birthday and notes:

... Freud had a tremendous impact on literature. It was after Freud's writings became widespread that novelists began to write fiction that took place entirely inside their characters' minds. His work also gave writers permission to start describing more frankly their characters' sexual desires.

Indeed, Freud was my first introduction to psychology and the notion of the unconscious part of our minds. In the middle 1950's, when I was around eleven or twelve years old, I acquired an old book about adolescent schizophrenia. Also, my father was an alcoholic, and I tried to understand his condition by reading everything I could find on the subject (including all A.A. pamphlets and its "Big Book".) The concept of the unconscious mind and how it affects behavior remains a force shaping any fiction I attempt. Happy Birthday, Dr. Freud, wherever you are! [podio]

Using Lyrics

You can't get a tune out of your head. It inspires a story. Maybe a song plays an important role in your novel. Sometimes lyrics fit right into an article to illustrate a point. What do you do about quoting them? See this Writers Digest Q&A Archives article on how to track down the copyright holder (yes, songs are covered, too) through affiliations with "performing rights society such as ASCAP, BMI or SESAC." [copyrights]

Build Traffic

A common question I find on writers' forums and chatrooms is, "Can one really make big money with a blog?" Because a blog is a website, any advice in this direction applies to any website. Usually I respond, "Yes, BUT you don't begin to make real money until you have high traffic, especially if you're using AdSense. It takes many clicks to add up to a dollar in revenue." A useful article I found to help the process is on Steve Pavlina's "Personal Development for Smart People" blog. In How to Build a High-Traffic Web Site (or Blog), he expounds on ten practices leading toward success:

1. Create valuable content.
2. Create original content.
3. Create timeless content.
4. Write for human beings first, computers second.
5. Know why you want a high-traffic site.
6. Let your audience see the real you.
7. Write what is true for you, and learn to live with the consequences.
8. Treat your visitors like real human beings.
9. Keep money in its proper place.
10. If you forget the first nine suggestions, just focus on genuinely helping people, and the rest will take care of itself.

I was so glad to read #10, feeling a little abashed that I fall down on the job doing the first nine from time to time. And let me announce that in regard to #9, that BizRate has opted to continue to supporting this blog, and I've decided to accept other advertising. Send an email for more info to writerads [AT] att.net. [websites]

Risky Agents

I first learned about this list from Paula Offutt's blog, Thought Patterns. The top 21 literary agents complained about to Writer Beware:

The Abacus Group Literary Agency
Allred and Allred Literary Agents (refers clients to "book doctor" Victor West of Pacific Literary Services)
Capital Literary Agency (formerly *American Literary Agents of Washington, Inc.)
Barbara Bauer Literary Agency
Benedict Associates (also d/b/a B.A. Literary Agency)
Sherwood Broome, Inc.
Desert Rose Literary Agency
Arthur Fleming Associates
Finesse Literary Agency (Karen Carr)
Brock Gannon Literary Agency
Harris Literary Agency
The Literary Agency Group, which includes the following:
Children's Literary Agency
Christian Literary Agency
New York Literary Agency
Poets Literary Agency
The Screenplay Agency
Stylus Literary Agency (formerly ST Literary Agency)
Writers Literary Publishing Services Company (the editing arm of the above-mentioned agencies)
Martin-McLean Literary Associates
Mocknick Productions Literary Agency, Inc.
B.K. Nelson, Inc.
The Robins Agency (Cris Robins)
Michelle Rooney Literary Agency (also d/b/a Creative Literary Agency and Simply Nonfiction)
Southeast Literary Agency
Mark Sullivan Associates
West Coast Literary Associates (also d/b/a California Literary Services)
Lee Shore Literary Agency [agents]

Web Research

According to Wendy Boswell, editor of Ask.com's section on Web Search, we see only a few threads in Internet web. She says in How to Search the Invisible Web:

Google, considered by most people in the know to have the largest search database, has about eight billion pages in its index. Those eight billion pages seem like a lot until you consider that the Deep Web is estimated to be 500 times bigger than the searchable Web. Multiply 500 by the 8 billion in Google's index plus add in the fact that Google is only indexing a fraction of the searchable Web (around 250 billion pages are on the Web today)

Finding the resources in those hidden pages may require use of special search engines. She listed Top Ten Alternative Search Engines. These two articles are part of a series that's worth studying if you use the Internet for research. You can subscribe to an RSS feed of this series' tag with http://www.lifehacker.com/software/seek-and-ye-shall-find/index.xml in your feed reader. [research resource]

Amazon News

Amazon Connect: Author Directory "allows readers to receive messages directly from their favorite authors. It opens an entirely new channel of communication between authors and their readers. Participating authors can post messages on their book detail pages and to the home page of readers who have bought their books on Amazon.com." A search facility allows finding authors alphabetically.

Another Amazon tool: U.S. customers can tag a book with keywords. The only requirement is that you must have bought one copy of any item at Amazon. Tagging a book allows you to search for similar books by tag. It's getting off to a slow start and doesn't seem to be available for all books in the Amazon depository. [Amazon.com]