Tag Archives: Reading

researching your book, Writing

Researching your book: Do you do it?

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Do you research your writings of any kind? Whether it’s a short story, novella to a full size novel, do you research the piece? I am entering a short story in one of Writer’s Digest many contests. The only condition is that it has to be under 4k. Still there were a couple of sections that I did a bit of research to make it accurate.

For my children series I have notes coming out of my yang for each animal in the book to make sure they are in the region I am writing in. I have checked to make sure the scenery is how it’s suppose to be. I have pages of links that I have used to prove my research. Even though some people have told me that this genre does not need to be researched. This is such a huge part of the book. You get one big thing wrong and get the person who knows about it to read your book, brace yourself for that review.

I was reading a book for review and in it the author mentioned how his cockatiel could sing songs with 40 different lyrics. I knew that was inaccurate. I let it go. But every time he went to his office in the book this bird would sing.

I knew again this was wrong. How? I had at that point, and still to this day, been rescuing and adopting birds for over 15 years and of the ones with me were four cockatiels. While they can sing a multiple of songs and sounds I have never heard them sing the words to the song. I even contacted a breeder I knew who had been doing this for over 40 years and she laughed at me. It did ruin what was a great book.

You never know who reads your book. If your novel is one that would benefit from research,do it.

Author's showcase, Books and libraries, Writer

Author’s Showcase

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Last Friday a local library had their annual author’s showcase. With it being free for the writers I sign up happily. This was my second time for this event. It was a great chance to hang out with writers, friends who are writers and readers.

The weather held up and we had a nice crowd come to the event. With having Jasper’s canvas picture on my table it drew a lot of people to me. The event was only two hours but it went b y quickly. It was nice to talk to the community about my books and how I came up with the idea for them.I made some sales, woohoo, and all in all it was a good night.

Getting out into the public is not easy and on some occasions it can be a bit nerve-wracking. But the more I try the easier it does become. What was really nice is how my name is getting out among the community. Which is extremely helpful not to mention free and good publicity is always good.

I did forgot to have someone take a picture of me and my table, doh. But the night was fun, my table mate was a friend of mine so we did chatter a bit. The event helped Friends of the Library which is one I do support so it was a win win on a few levels.

So writers, get on out when you can in your community. Readers support your writers. If nothing else support your local libraries. They do so much for us and all of it is free to the public.

 

Why blog?, Writing

Why blog?

9 Comments

2014-04-28 11.52.25

How hard is it to find blog content? And how often should you post per week? Plus, why blog in the first place?

First is content. Where do we find it? How do we come up with a topic and talk about it is something that everyone must figure out. Me personally I just look around where I am at, pay attention to conversations or will talk about something that is happening. Easy? Not always. One reason I am writing this post about blogs to be honest. My friend CP does a lot of reposting, sharing and hosting on his blog. That is a great way to help others and yourself at the same time and something I need to do more of.

Second is how often. That can be left up to interpretation of the writer. You don’t want to bore your audience, rather you want to keep them enjoying and engaging in what you talk about. It varies from blog to blog how often you get content to read. Also life can get in the way with health, family and life in general. The beauty of sites like this is you can write content when you think of something and just schedule it to be released on the day you want it dropped.

Why blog in the first place? There have been bloggers for a heck of a long time. You can see blogs about coffee to cats to just about anything. It is a good way to express ourselves, a way to let people know what is going on to getting your name out there just to name a few. Some just like writing stuff down regardless if their blog is being followed by a mass amount of people or just a few.

Regardless of the reason blogging can be fun, therapeutic and you get to meet some interesting characters along the way, That alone is worth the effort.