Literature's Honourable Failure Lost

If you try to visit the Guardian Unlimited books section to read the two parts of Zadie Smith on literature's legacy of honourable failure you'll get an error message. Because this part and the second supposedly contain "15 tips on writing and reading, Zadie Smith calls for a new, non-cynical criticism that reveals personal tastes and obsessions - an individual experience of the novel" I asked the GU how to find the pages. They responded:

Unfortunately the articles are no longer available on Guardian Unlimited due to copyright reasons. However, back copies of the Guardian and Observer are available from a company called "Historic Newspapers" whose archive for both newspapers dates back to the very first editions.

That's just dandy for readers of the print edition. I don't even know that the articles appeared in print, much less which day, editions, section and page. I don't even know the titles of the articles. And I haven't been able to find them in a cursory search. The more frustrated I become, the more curiosity grows. I suspect Smith's views were controversial, perhaps antagonistic to the publication, but I seriously doubt a "copyright" dispute.

If anyone knows how I can obtain a copy of both parts of Smith's essay, please let us know.

Get on Oprah

Direct Contact PR rep Paul Krupin offers a lot of advice about publicity and Getting on Oprah, once you get over the hurdle that there's nothing you can do to ensure an appearance there. He does, however, offer a formula for creating buzz, and enough of that might attract Oprah's attention: DPAA + H. That's:

D = Dramatic
P = Personal
A = Achievement
A = Adversity
H = Humor

Krupin claims "that the media respond to and thrive on the same motivational factors that your buyers require. You can use these factors as your key news angles and flesh out the meat of your news releases with the personal stories and real life events and experiences" others have. Please notice he talks about news releases, not press releases. Press releases are so passe. In the newsroom most go directly to the circular file. Anyway, the media are not only print, but also broadcast and electronic, so why give most of them a slap in the face by referring to your communications in hard copy printing terminology?

Seven Things Meme

Viv at Cape Art tagged me asking that I post seven things about myself that are a habit, unusual or that no-one else knows. Also, 'tag' seven blogger friends in a list in this post, and then leave a message on their blogs telling them that they've been tagged (giving the link back to this post). That's a lot of work!

1. My morning drink is Bigelow's Vanilla Hazlenut tea.
2. Bergen Evans was friends with my great-grandfather.
3. I went to Northwestern U. to become a radio continuity writer.
4. Without training, I was employed as an educational analyst.
5. Despite two degrees in psychology I've never worked as a psychologist.
6. I've watched "Days of Our Lives" from the start, 40 years ago.
7. My dreams are usually in color.

Now, who shall I pick on? How about the authors of:
Teardrops on Roses, Blooger Hery, Kate blogs about writing, Inspiring Imagination, Dangerous Bill's, Namaste to Sabudi and Incurable Disease ... They'll have to find their own links, however, for it's way too difficult tracking down some people's [nonexistent] email addresses. An alert blogger should be aware of every mention, anyway.

Store Research Information

It sometimes seems that the newest generation of writers knows how to research topics only with an Internet connection. Some think the Wikipedia is an authority to cite. If you're working on something important and for public consumption (eventually), you need to return to the information's roots. That means finding its source in print if you can. For academic research, often the original source is the only acceptable version to cite. You might not have an actual copy of it, but your digital one should contain all the sourcing information (title, authors, date published, location, page numbers, editors and perhaps in what other publication).

In all your other researching, copy to disk or print out versions of the pages you might use. My rule of thumb in journalism was to have about ten times as many facts as made it into the story. You want the data safe in case you can't find it again (you did remember to capture the pages' URLs, too, didn't you? They aren't always obvious, nor do they always appear in the data.) Pages often "disappear" for a variety of reasons. Last week I tried to write about a well-known British author's views on critics, only to find the Guardian Unlimited had removed both parts of her article in a spat over copyright ... and I haven't found a free archived image yet!

You also want to be able to verify the accuracy as well as the existence and credibility of your sources for others. When printing out pages, set the page layout software to display the date, name of the site and the URL. Be certain you have the same information for any data saved on disk Even if you've emailed it to yourself, send yourself another message with the referring documentation.

Writers' Luck

Are you lucky? Do you think luck or chance plays a part in getting published, especially for a first book (double especial for a novel!) I am not a particularly lucky person, and yet I've gained the successes I pursued in my writing life. If you believe in blind, dumb, random luck, you might as well stop reading right here because that's the same as religious faith. But wait! Is there a shred of doubt in your mind? Maybe you'd better read on, because I don't think I was so very lucky. I think my successes were the result of a lot of hard work and preparation, as well as a lot of alert standing around in the intersection where opportunity was known to hang.

O.K., sure, I also advocate networking and that "it's who you know", but I'd never have known anyone if I stayed in my cave pounding my Olivetti all those years. I couldn't have produced award-winning photos, poems and articles without learning something about how they are created. I had to know the basics, the structures required and little nuances like always including an SASE with a submission. See, you don't just sit down and write, even a novel, without understanding the form and the differences between a good one and a bad one. Or, in fiction's case, between a good story and not a story.

Take classes, read books, join groups. You don't have to get an MFA or degree in journalism, although they wouldn't hurt and might help. Subscribe to writers' magazines or read them in a library. Take an online course. Participate in forums. And write.

Dictiowary Silly Words

Humor yourself today with SoCal city editor Bob's Dictiowary from his Bobborama website. "Welcome to my dictiowary -- The first section features words I've redefined after adding or deleting one letter, and the second section features my new definitions for existing words. Updated regularly." He's also a cat person. I like Bob, and I know just what to do about him -- read his blog for lots of laughs! Consider the "N" Section:

Neighborely advice: Advice from your boring neighbor. Typically in one ear, out the other, because, really, who pays much attention to boorish neighbors anyway.

Nintendo'h! Video gamers wishing in hindsight they'd bought an X-Box or a Sony Playstation instead of a Nintendo Wii. D'oh!

Nonfriction: 'Frey'd' nerves resulting from the public backlash of a fictionalized autobiography. Also see James Frey or A Million Little Pieces.

Dog Stories Wanted

Yes, I do seem to have dogs on the brain this week. Is it any wonder? Naturally I was susceptible to a pitch from David Leonhardt who wrote:

Hi Georganna. I was wondering if any of your readers might be interested in writing real-life stories about their dogs. If so, they might be interested in contributing to an anthology we are organizing, for $100 and a byline: http://www.seo-writer.com/books/dog-stories.html Cheers. David.

The submissions are for an anthology that Happy Guy Marketing is preparing, deadline is June 30, 2007. I suggest you read the guidelines carefully (including the fine print and any contract offered) and follow them exactly. Hint: to get an idea of the kind of story they want, visit the Amazon.com page referenced and use the "Inside the book" feature to read a sample story.

Defining Events for Characters

Each generation feels defined by certain events that take place during formative years, often the 20s. That's when we emerge from childhood and decide who we are and what we stand for. Often the events are cataclysmic, jolting us out of our adolescent fantasies, forcing us to grow up. It can be important in fiction to understand which generation your characters belong to, whether they embrace or reject their defining moments. For me, an advance guard for the Baby Boomers, it was the murder of President Kennedy, the U.S. space program and the Viet Nam war. For my parents, born in 1915 and 1917, it was the Great Depression and World War II. People coming of age after I did, might respond to drugs, technology, 9/11; and in cultures other than North American, to different happenings. Be sure to include or at least consider your characters' defining events as you build their worlds. One way to research this aspect would be to interview a group of people similar to the character in question. Ask in a focus group, "What was the most important event that shaped your life?" Let them talk for a while, to disagree and discuss, and eventually a consensus will emerge about the top happenings.

Unlock Writer's Block

Continuing the series on various forms of writer's block and suggested solutions: one type is the "empty well" syndrome or lack of inspiration. Many beginning writers, especially those intent on producing short stories or the great American (or any other nationality) novel, wonder how successful writers find their ideas. I usually tell them to just look around. The world is full of stories. It's easier for nonfiction writers to recognize hot topics or interesting reads, especially if the writer is blessed with curiosity and alert to changes. Fiction writers who focus on people and relationships may need maturity before they can understand the intricacies of human entanglements. Motives for behaviour are so often hidden in the unconscious. In the meantime, writers can turn to prompts to get them thinking about writing topics. I've listed several prompt resources in the past (1) and (2), but recently came upon a doozie at TDavid's MakeYouGoHmm.com.

Tools for Freelancers

When Rich McIver first wrote to me about The Freelancer's Toolset: 100 Web Apps for Everything You Will Possibly Need, I must admit to being a little skeptical. Eventually I found time to visit the website Codswallop, and look over the long list of what we used to call "utilities". I see some of my favorites, some unfamiliars, and some to counter problems I'd never even thought of. Yes, they do all pertain to writers because, if you're serious about your writing, you are running it as a business. And if you're reading this, you run your writing business with at least a modicum of techiness. If you use the Internet for marketing and promotion, you probably need at least minimal graphics tools, too. Happy tinkering!

Nonfiction Book Marketing

As an experiment to attract a publisher, or maybe an agent, one of my book consulting clients agreed to let me list his work at the PublishersMarketPlace.com. Part of the membership provides another blog, which I also named "A Writer's Edge". Within that page is a link to the rights offering for the book. I haven't posted much there, being wary of displaying any of the amazing content, fabulous stories about what I would call Mok: The Superdog. I keep wondering if the reading public is ready for another nonfiction book about a Labrador retriever, this one the antithesis of Marley.

Find Markets for Fiction

Pity the poor fiction writers! Not only do they suffer a higher percentage of writer's block syndrome, but also the shrinkage in the markets for their work can be discouraging. Genre fiction writers, rejoice. The Market List rides to the rescue:

Started in 1994 as an online ezine on AOL and Compuserve, and with the first fully comprehensive writers market guidelines index online, The Market List has a ten year history of providing aspiring and professional writers with potential markets for their fiction.

Although it says "all" the index has a focus on science fiction, horror and fantasy.

What Book Are You?

Clever Clayton at the Blue Pyramid has done it again. He's come up with a brief quiz to pinpoint exactly which character book represents your personality the best in the Book Quiz. This is so spot-on me it's spooky!

You're Ulysses by James Joyce!

Most people are convinced that you don't make any sense, but compared to what else you could say, what you're saying now makes tons of sense. What people do understand about you is your vulgarity, which has convinced people that you are at once brilliant and repugnant. Meanwhile you are content to wander around aimlessly, taking in the sights and sounds of the city. What you see is vast, almost limitless, and brings you additional fame. When no one is looking, you dream of being a Greek folk hero.

Business, Book, Publish

This one is for nonfiction writers. Some people think the way to go is to write a book, and later if it succeeds, build a business based on it. Elaine Floyd says:

Authoring a book helps establish you as a subject-matter expert and thought leader. Your book opens doors to media interviews and speaking opportunities that are often closed to the bookless. At the same time, your book can show your services and projects in an educational way that customers and prospects value.

She also quotes Rich Dad, Poor Dad author, Robert Kiyosaki, "I don't write books. I build the business behind the book."

Together with Alan Weiss of summitconsulting.com, the dynamic duo have produced a checklist of publishing strategies for a book marketing plan. You can download your own .PDF copy.

Internet Success Tips

Essential tips for people doing business on the Internet, according to Terry Gibbs:

1. Don't feel you have to follow the herd. Test different strategies to see what works best for your business.

2. Be willing to invest time and money to expand and improve your skills.

3. Build your business around something you love. "Passion makes a big difference," he says.

4. Diversify. Gibbs started out with one book printed on paper. Now he produces books, audios, and software.

5. Make sure every page in your web site has a specific goal. Gibbs sees his pages goals this way: article pages get subscribers, sales pages make sales and some pages are there just to feed keywords to the search engines.

6. Last, but extremely important, says Gibbs. "Know the basics of how a web site works!"

You're probably wondering, "Who is Terry Gibbs and why should I listen to him?" His website iWantCollectibles.com features articles on how to succeed in selling on eBay, probably the largest Internet market. Read about Gibb's amazing saga to success in an interview in The Internet Wizards Magazine from which I cribbed the six tips above.

Get Writing Help from LEO

Have you met LEO? It's the Literacy Education Online part of The Write Place, the writing center of St. Cloud State University in Minnesota. Start on the Welcome to LEO page of this very simply designed website with tons of information about writing. It's organized along the lines of "for this problem, click here", although it does also have an alphabetical catalog. A problem with any cataloging scheme is being able to divine the system the constructors used. If I don't understand how to punctuate compound sentences, do I look under "punctuation", "compound", "sentences", "clauses", "semi-colons", "commas" or what? You'll find a plethora of useful writing information at LEO, but if you copy it, please respect the website's copyright notices and include them in your material. They even provide a page about citations that tells you how to do so in APA and MLA styles.

Technorati Authority and Rank

According to a post in its own blog, Technorati Authority and Rank the blog tracking service no longer ranks a blog as X out of XXXXXXX. A new algorithm (similar to how Google determines standings in search results) now yields Technorati Authority, the number of blogs linking to a website in the last six months. The higher the number, the more Technorati Authority the blog has. Also on the blog's page is the Technorati Rank: calculated on how far you are from the top.

The blog with the highest Technorati Authority is the #1 ranked blog. The smaller your Technorati Rank, the closer you are to the top.

So if you're low, you're high, except in authority where if you're high, you're high. Excuse me, I'm dizzy and need to go lie down.

Writer's Block Dramas

More movies and books about writers exist than I'd ever imagined. We seem to be our own favorite topics. Maybe that's from following the dictum "write what you know" or because some of us can't think of anything else to write on. I wondered about that in relation to having writer's block, the solution to which is often "just write". Some authors may have done so, and the following dramas resulted:

8 1/2
Adaptation
Barton Fink
Secret Window
Shakespeare in Love
The Shining
Swimming Pool
Throw Momma From the Train
Quills
Wonder Boys
Stranger Than Fiction
Finding Forrester

I found this list near the bottom of a page at Answers.com, and on it each entry links to another page of information there. If you can't write, you can always read or watch a movie about someone in a similar situation. Maybe it will give you an idea that leads to a solution for your particular case. Remember, each one is different.

Creative Exercise

Again at the bagel shop, this train of thought pulled me into world-building possibilities for fiction: in the Sunday comic "The Family Circus", one child asked, "Who would be my mother if Daddy hadn't married our mother?" Hm, I thought, applying the question to my own life and letting imagination run rampant. The first of my father's interests that I can remember was Sally Jackson. She worked at the Hancock Beauty Shop, which my father owned for a few years. She so resembled my mother that it was spooky!

He also had two other wives one year, and with one of them, Wanda, he spawned a child. That could have been me ... 14 years younger. Instead, it was a boy they named Tom, a half-brother I've never met. Half-siblings seem to be a staple in soap operas, sometimes playing major roles and often just serving to move the plot along. Or, what if it turned out that one of these other women were my true mother, that a back story existed which I found out only after my mother died--which happened in real life almost a year ago.

Now I have several plot elements with which to construct a frame for the house of my story. It doesn't have to be all about me. I'd clothe the characters in other's personalities and appearances, using a chart like I wrote about yesterday.

Character Chart

One difficulty fiction writers often encounter in trying to build their first novel is how to develop a character and then keep track of the details about that character. I've done it with notebooks (a page about each character) and narratives and more recently by filling out my own forms or tables of characteristics. But I find electronically searching a Word document or an Excel spreadsheet too confusing, so I print it out and pin the pages to a bulletin board that stands beside my desk.

Author Rebecca Sinclair has designed Character Chart you can capture (save as text) and use. It is divided into major aspects or components such as Attitude, Occupation, Family and more with prompting questions to answer or at least think about. A sample of the Miscellaneous questions:

Person character secretly admires:
Why?
Person character was most influenced by:
Why?
Most important person in character's life before story starts:
Why?
How does character spend the week before the story starts?

Link to Competitors

I like Jack Humphrey's

Heresy Alert:
I've stated at least 100 times that you are not marketing if you don't have a blog. Rather, you are not in existence if you don't blog because your site, products, services, whatever you hope to achieve with your site is irrelevant, obscure, and lucky to have any traffic at all.

He makes this rather bold indictment in one of his Friday Traffic Reports, Give Links to Gain Authority Status. He maintains that his high traffic volume and return rate of visitors is due to his linking to competitive sites with good information. This is a practice I advocate in my eBooks on Effective Websites for Writers. Humphrey feels that rather than losing visitors, they return to his blog because they remember who originally introduced them to the "cool stuff". This applies whether your blog or websites promote you as a writer, items you have for sale, a single book or services. Humphrey's site is subtitled "Free Blog Marketing and Web 2.0 Promotion Tactics" and looks worthwhile to mine for tips.

Copyright and Public Domain

Cornell University online offers one of the most complete compilations of the confusing information about what works are in the public domain and how copyright works in Copyright Term and the Public Domain in the United States. It's way to large to reproduce here, although offered under a Creative Commons Some Rights Reserved license of Attribution-NonCommercial License 2.5, and too complex to simplify. According to the information provided:

This chart was first published in Peter B. Hirtle, "Recent Changes To The Copyright Law: Copyright Term Extension," Archival Outlook, January/February 1999. This version is current as of 1 January 2007. ...

The chart is based in part on the previously referenced Laura N. Gasaway's chart, "When Works Pass Into the Public Domain," at <http://www.unc.edu/~unclng/public-d.htm>, and similar charts found in Marie C. Malaro, A Legal Primer On Managing Museum Collections (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1998): 155-156.

Be sure to read the footnotes to be fully informed. It's also available in a .PDF version.

Crisis in Reading

David Kipen, former San Francisco Chronicle book editor and critic, hopes the current campaigns to save newspaper book reviews will restore reading to the heart of American life. He claims, from his current lofty position of the NEA's director of literature:

Still, as important as the crisis in American book reviewing is, the underlying crisis in reading is practically sawing the country in half. Forget red states and blue states. The implications of a republic where half reads and the other doesn't -- not can't, just doesn't -- are simply horrifying.

Read Kipen's whole essay at Salon.com in Last exit to book land (may require subscription).While we know people here read, who are the people who don't read (besides adolescents with their ears plugged to I-Pods)? One of the rites of adulthood in the 60s was getting a subscription to the newspaper. At a certain point in the 80s, I read three papers daily. Now I go to Starbucks and scarf down a Hazelnut decaf with the freebie papers lying around. What's happened to us? Yes, I buy the Sunday paper only for the TV guide insert. Papers just don't seem relevant anymore.

But not reading books? Is it the short attention span everyone blames on TV and the Internet? Are we not human adults, capable of controlling our own bodies, changing habits to improve our lives? Just as we can learn to calm ourselves, we can also increase our patience with reading material and again find the joy and satisfaction books can bring. That's the campaign we need!

Radio for Writers

You can find "radio for writers, by writers" at Writers FM. It's operated by Karl Moore, who also has a blog, a website and a lovely British accent. Of course, it's not really radio, AM or FM, but streaming media you can hear (with jazzy background music) on the Windows Media Player. The website also archives podcasts in MP3 format of some of the shows. A broadcast of an interview with historical biographer Lucinda Hawksley was playing when I visited this morning. The podcast playbill includes programs with Edwina Curry (Hell's Kitchen), Joe Vitale (Internet marketing), Phil Harris (Waking God) and several more.

Writer's Block Solutions

When people set out to become writers, they're often stumped when asked about their activities. This is a problem that pops up regularly in forums and online chats. What do you say? You're a writer, so why won't the words come? Last month I mentioned Kristi Holl's Writer's First Aid. Another cause of writer's block that she mentions is:

Personality style: passive or aggressive, outgoing or shy, rigid or flexible, courageous or fearful. An outgoing person may be great a book signings and marketing his work, yet block when it's time to sit down--alone--and write for three hours. The flexible person may have numerous ideas that flow effortlessly and may be able to juggle a number of different projects, yet he may block when it's time to choose just one idea and get to work. The insecure person may write fluently and happily alone, yet block when nearing the end of her story because she's too afraid of rejection to submit a finished product.

This reminded me of C. Hope Clark's well-known The Shy Writer. On her eponymous website, Hope offers hope for shy writers on a page titled What You Can Do. The very first tip from her book states, "Clearly define the type writer you are." Another is, "Learn that "People Like Positive" and how that phrase can help you." The last piece of advice that I think can help most all beginners is: Create your basic essential statements so you do not have to think when asked question like "What do you do?" "What do you write?" "What is your book about?"

This is where elevator speeches and loglines (one sentence summaries) of your works come in very handy. How can you say something when you have nothing to say? Be a Girl Scout, be prepared!

Online Marketing for Writers

Stephanie Chandler is the author of several business books and the founder of BusinessInfoGuide, a directory of resources for entrepreneurs. She also recently released a workbook and eBook called Online Marketing for Authors. Her article offers tips from her book:

* Post a blog
* Put out a newsletter
* Have a website
* Form strategic alliances
* Write articles
* Use Amazon Connect