writing in general | laurenwaters

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Back to Civilization!

Posted in writing in general, tagged Author, Hurricane Irene, Writing on August 31, 2011| 3 Comments »

(Basically what Hurricane Irene left on every street in our area)

Wow, Hurricane Irene really ransacked our area. We finally got power back today in the house we evacuated to but our house is still without power. Nothing like getting an email the day before a hurricane that you must evacuate your home with all your animals since we lie in a low-lying area. So we packed up our two cats, dog, and bunny along with seven days of provisions to seek refuge in a kind sister’s house. Before we left our house I tried to move anything irreplaceable up to the second floor and was faced with one of those hypothetical questions when I had to pick what I could bring with me if for some reason the house washed away. So after packing up all my sons baby photos and videos we said goodbye to our house and the trees that loomed dangerously to it.

I also of course googled how hurricanes effect late pregnancy and freaked out completely to see an increase in deliveries due to low barometric pressure. The image of going into labor during a hurricane and not getting that epidural plagued me and thankfully baby did not decide to make an early appearance. Then my diabetic cat has his first low insulin reaction in the middle of all this stress and I’m chasing him around on the floor nine months pregnant trying to save his life with honey injections with a flashlight. He’s doing fine now, thank the lord, but will not let me near his mouth. Now all I want is to get back home and unpacked before this baby’s arrival and I’m wondering what this nesting disruption must be doing to my already crazy pregnancy hormones.

Oh well. Things could be worse. As soon as the winds died down my husband sneaked under dangerous down trees hanging on power lines to find that out house not only remained flood free but not one tree was down on our property. Yay!

It has been terrible not being able to work on my projects and respond to my book formatter’s and graphic designer’s emails. I realize how much I love working on my novels. Writing (and now publishing) has become a definite part of my life and I really miss it when it’s gone. So I guess that means I’m a writer now. It’s not publishing, making sales, or developing a following that makes you a writer, but what writing brings to your life and how it makes you feel. Writing gives me another purpose and keeps my mind engaged. I truly love writing and hope I always will.

Oh enough whining…back to writing.

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Has Writing Changed How You Read?

Posted in writing in general, tagged Author, writers, Writing on August 24, 2011| 2 Comments »

So I was hooked up to a contraction measuring machine yesterday and I brought along a book I’ve been trying to finish for sometime now. Lately I’ve been giving priority to reading self-publishing guides, writing forums, blogs and beta reading. (I probably should be cracking out those baby care books but since this is my second it will all come back to me, right…right?)

Well, I had to have something I could hold in my hand so I grabbed the best-seller that’s been waiting patiently on my nightstand. Leaving books half-finished is not like me. I normally start and can’t stop reading until it’s done. It wasn’t until I kept rereading lines on the page for the third time that I realized it:

Since writing my own books, I don’t read the same as I used to.

Before what was entertainment and pleasure has truly become a study. Now I feel the need to observe everything: flow, punctuation, dialog tags, pov usage, plot developement, and avoiding clichés.

I used to finish a book and say, “How awesome was that book!”

Now I ask, “How did the author do that?”

Has this somewhat diminished the enjoyment of reading?

It definitely seems like I read slower and in smaller clips. I’ve certainly switched from a passive reading and absorbing role to an active and analytic role. In the past, I would feel this way when we were reading a book for a class, and even though the enjoyment of the prescribed book is affected, I would always come away with a deeper understanding of the book and I tend to remember those books in much better detail.

In a way, reading is now more work. But I think about each book while reading and long after I’m finished, and I have a much better understanding and appreciation than I would have had previously.

It must be the same for artists. They probably have difficultly just looking at a beautiful landscape and saying, “What a gorgeous sunrise!” Since they’re probably thinking, “What color is that sun?” and “How can I create that myself?”

What about you? Have you noticed that you read differently since writing? How has your reading process changed?

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Setting up Google Alerts

Posted in self-publishing, writing in general, tagged Author, Book reviews, indie publishing, Novel release, Self-print, Self-printed, Self-Publishing, Writing on August 22, 2011| 1 Comment »

Just a little tip for anyone not familiar with a great tool called Google Alerts. I heard this mentioned on another blog and wondered if I would be able to figure out how to do this myself. I typed in ‘google alerts’ and wouldn’t ya know it went directly to a google alerts screen. You can enter any keywords or phrases that you want to be notified about anywhere online. This is so important for writers since if anyone reviews your book on their blog or happens to mention your book you can immediately thank them. It’s important to know what others are saying about your writing and your books (good and bad) and this way you will be notified it’s out there.

After you type in something you want to track (my example: Infinite Sacrifice), you can choose what facets of the web you want to search (I chose everything). Then you can chose how frequent you want it sent to you (I chose once a day) and if you want only the best results sent to you or all (I chose best results). Lastly, you enter the email you would like these notifications sent to.

You can create as many of these alerts that you want. I chose to enter the titles of my books, the series name, a few different versions of my name, and my website address. This is also a neat idea if you want to track a certain author or topic you’re extremely interested in. I also decided to enter the names of future titles of my book since it would be good to know if someone else uses these titles before I can.

Well, just another tip I learned about through purusing blogs and thought I’d pass it on!

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Back to the ole drawing board…

Posted in self-publishing, writing in general, tagged Editing, indie publishing, Revising, Rewriting, Self-print, Self-printed, Self-Publishing, Writing on August 15, 2011| 2 Comments »

So in the middle of this whole first self-publishing experience, I’m attempting to get my second novel of the series ready to quickly follow the first.I find myself going back (what feels like so long ago) to the first major edits of my first. So these are the things I’ve learned from so many terrific editing blogs out there:

1) Remove all the ‘just’s you can

2)Remove all the ‘that’s you can

3)Do an ‘ly’ search for adverbs and change them where you can

4) I tend to overuse the word ‘look’ so I do a search for those and change them

6) Tighten up unneeded words

7) Remove all unnecessary dialog tags

8 ) Cut the fat (take out anything that doesn’t move the story forward)

9) Change all ‘has pulled’ to ‘pulls’ or ‘is running’ to ‘runs’, even ‘comes running’ to ‘runs’

I’ve also started to go through all the things I learned from my editor so she doesn’t think I’m a lost cause. My goal is to have a lot less red on the pages with the next one.

It seems a never-ending process though because publishing the second makes me want to finish writing the third book so I can have that follow as well, but I’m only human! How can I be learning self-publishing, promoting, editing the second, AND writing the third! How do these prolific writers do it?