The Evil Adverb-Newbie Mistake #1

For the very new writer, an adverb is a pitfall. It was one of the first things that was brought to my attention in a writers online workshop. Editors hate adverbs; for the most part. As with anything else, there are always exceptions, but to be on the safe side, try to keep them minimal. This falls into the category of Show, don't Tell. For example: John walked angrily through the room. If you were to see this, or write this, alarm bells should go off in your head, your hand, your fingers and even in your toes. Try to show he was angry. Example: The door slammed into the wall as John strode into the room. His footsteps shook the vase on the table. I cringed as he approached and prepared myself to put out the fire. etc, etc. etc

Quickly is an adverb that gets me into a lot of trouble and I find myself inserting it rather than showing it. You will probably discover you have a favorite adverb too. Now, go look at your manuscript. Every place you see an adverb, try to describe the action, feeling, emotion, whatever is happening by character dialogue, movements, or responses. If you need help, drop me an email. I'll be glad to work with you on it.

Media Meltdown

Media Meltdown

My mind is a maelstrom-I looked it up, it's spelled right-of social media sites and advice about social media. Everything I've read is that it's important to get known. You must, blog, tweet, web?, email, Facebook and pretty much stand on your head. My brain is scrambled. I published a book, and now I must advertise, both my book and myself. So, I created a website. I used GoDaddy, and thankfully their cheap one is okay for me since I'm just learning. By the way, their technology support people are really good and very nice. I have a separate Facebook account just for writing. I have two blogs, one for science fiction and one for beginning writers. The second one is only because I can't seem to stop teaching, so, even though I consider myself a beginning author too, I want to help/teach others. And thanks to a young girl on YouTube, I have all kinds of buttons and links. Are people reading about me/my book? I don't know. Are people interested in my blogs? I don't know. Some of the writing advice I have read says that it takes time to get known and collect followers. I'm sure that's true, and I will continue to blog, tweet, web, FB, and email, oh yeah, and google+. Forgot that one. Why? I feel compelled. Now, to be honest, I'm not really doing all of that so I can sell enough books to be financially independent. I know you just said, Yeah, right. I think the reason why I'm not trying to support myself with my writing is because I don't have the confidence in myself that it will ever happen, so it's not a goal of mine-yet. I just want to know what people think of Golden Hope, and how I can improve my writing. And hopefully get noticed so publishing my next book will be easier.
So, I will try to limit, categorize, and develop my social media so that maybe, on the off chance I do get a following they will enjoy my writing. Then maybe I will develop a little bit of confidence and faith in my writing. Who knows? It could happen.

Introduction to the reinvented Beginner Authors Blog

Join me as I try to make sense of being a beginning writer. I have published one book, a YA science fiction novel, but I still count myself as a beginning writer. Why? Well, because I have so much more to learn and I'm not rich and famous. I guess in my mind, that's what makes a professional writer. Someone whose name is know by readers, not necessarily the rich part, although you better believe, that part would be awesome.

My career up to this point has been as a teacher and as I was blogging on my sci-fi-lite blog, I realized that I kept falling back to teacher mode. I still want to instruct, so I'm going to share things I went through as a very, very beginning writer. Then things I learned as I wrote more and more, and finally things I learned through the publishing process. I would love for you to join me, and please, share what you've learned and other blogs you follow.

New post to follow.

Feeling Like a Loser?

Feeling Like a Loser?

Okay, since I have had no comments so far I'm going to pretend I am alone, not hard, and write this as if it were a diary. Have you ever felt like you've gone your whole life and haven't accomplished anything? I was having one of those days today, so I dragged my sorry butt up and took my dog for a walk. It was a gorgeous day and as I walked I started thinking about how to deal with these negative thoughts. I decided to summarize my life to see if I was really as bad off as I thought. Here you will learn more about me than you might want to know and yes, I will share my age. Ugh, just remember, in my head I'm twenty. So summary: I am 57, I have a wonderful husband (other people say so, not just me), we raised four beautiful girls; we have five grandchildren that we love and are proud of, I spent 22 years influencing the children under my care to be the best, most responsible, knowledgeable children I could; our children are involved with church, pastoring or mentoring; I have published a book; I am healthy; I have traveled the world,...okay I could go on and on. So, basically, I had/have a wonderful life. Then I felt better. The end.
So, bottom line, do you have a wonderful book you can't seem to get published? Do you have a published book that is just sitting there? Do you have dirty laundry that needs doing? All things that many of us deal with daily. So, have a bad day if you must, but then, hating to use a cliche' but, count your blessings.

Feeling Like a Loser?

Okay, since I have had no comments so far I'm going to pretend I am alone, not hard, and write this as if it were a diary. Have you ever felt like you've gone your whole life and haven't accomplished anything? I was having one of those days today, so I dragged my sorry butt up and took my dog for a walk. It was a gorgeous day and as I walked I started thinking about how to deal with these negative thoughts. I decided to summarize my life to see if I was really as bad off as I thought. Here you will learn more about me than you might want to know and yes, I will share my age. Ugh, just remember, in my head I'm twenty. So summary: I am 57, I have a wonderful husband (other people say so, not just me), we raised four beautiful girls; we have five grandchildren that we love and are proud of, I spent 22 years influencing the children under my care to be the best, most responsible, knowledgeable children I could; our children are involved with church, pastoring or mentoring; I have published a book; I am healthy; I have traveled the world,...okay I could go on and on. So, basically, I had/have a wonderful life. Then I felt better. The end.
So, bottom line, do you have a wonderful book you can't seem to get published? Do you have a published book that is just sitting there? Do you have dirty laundry that needs doing? All things that many of us deal with daily. So, have a bad day if you must, but then, hating to use a cliche' but, count your blessings.

Beginning Writers Start Here

I am not a beginning writer, but, I'm not a professional either. More importantly, even though I've been writing for a long time, I can remember my beginning steps. Forget that I taught school for more years than I really want to say here. Forget that I completed a manuscript, actually about six. Forget that I've actually published a book. I still have so much more to learn. You never stop learning how to make your writing better, so here's my advice. This is for those of you, young and old, who are just taking that first baby step into the writing realm. Start by doing an online writing workshop. You share what you've written with other authors and they read and critique your work. I learned about POV (point of view) there and how important it is. You'll pick up a lot of writing tips to get you writing and it's a safe environment for criticisms, because you don't know these people. They're not related and therefore not obligated to tell you, yes, I loved your book. (Even though it was still in their beside drawer) Not everyone will like your writing, that's a given, but that's okay, just blow them a raspberry and take whatever advice you can to apply to your work. You also get to read others work, which often makes you feel so much better about yourself because there are some really, really crappy writers out there. So, at least you can say, I know I'm better than that guy. See, positive props. Hope this helps. Also check out the blogs showing here. They have some great tips.

What exactly is Sci-fi-lite?

Okay, here goes. First, let it be known that I am claiming sci-fi-lite as my term. Don't know if it's been used before. Maybe I should copyright it? What do you think? I guess you need to know what it means; to me, anyway.

Sci-fi-lite means you have a fun, exciting, adventurous story with limited technological terminology and limited futuristic gizmos and gadgets. Don't get me wrong, I use gizmos, for example; a magnigun is a laser gun that is based on magnetic principals. I'm not a physicist, so, yes, it's made up, and no, I don't know if it could be real.

Moving on; Sci-fi-lite, other than being a little awkward to keyboard, (notice I didn't date myself by saying type), haha, and I won't tell you how old I am, (relatives reading this- shut it!) sci-fi-lite usually has realistic events. I know, that's a bit of an oxymoron,(sorry editors, can't get an em dash)- for young readers this means they are opposite in meaning. Most people use" honest politician" as an example. In realistic science fiction, the people and their daily lives shouldbe familiar to the reader, for exampl: parent/teenager difficulties, jealousies, anger, love, romance, sibling rivalry and so on. Once again, realistic doesn't mean you won't encounter weird animals or people- that's the sci-fi part.

Oh, and a biggie for me, the content should be appropriate for young readers as well as adult. For me that means no bad language and no sex. I know that's a big deal these days but I'm willing to take the chance on fewer sales in order to keep my writing clean. Besides, in my opinion which is what this blog is right? if you have to resort to bad language and sex to draw readers, your writing needs work. I'm just sayin'.

So, that's it in a nut shell. If you want to read a good sci-fi-lite book, try Golden Hope , by Donna Chubb, found on Amazon, B&N, Nook, Kindle, and @All Things That Matter Press.
www.sci-fi-lite.com