Follow Friday? Thought that was a Twitter Meme...

Welcome to the Writer’s Follow Friday Blog Hop! Not sure if you qualify? If you have a blog to add, guess what, you’re a writer! So check out the rules, grab the link and join the hop! We’re small for now, but we hope to continue to grow.

Please join in in welcoming Liz Schulte from Bat Country with this week’s featured question:

"Some people like to do it in the office. Others prefer it in bed. Some people like it on the dining room table. Get your mind out of the gutter, I'm asking where you like to write!"


Simplicity itself answers this one. I like to do it in my bedroom, where I keep my computer. If I'm away from the keyboard, the bus will do. Or anyplace else where I can sit down, whip out my notepad, and catch my ideas on paper. Ooh, there goes another one... *wanders off*

Want to play? Here's what ya do...

The rules

1) Follow this blog.
2) Follow Elizabeth Sharp, the originator of this hop.
3) Follow the featured author of the week.
4) Go to Sharp words and copy the image code found there and paste it in your blog. Add your name to the link at the bottom of the post while you are there.
5) Copy and paste the rules in your blog, as well as this week’s question.
6) Answer the question
7) Follow, follow, follow. This is about networking, people, making connections with people in your community. So talk to us. We don't bite!
8) If someone stops by, says hi and follows you, the polite thing to do is follow back.
9) Comment here and introduce yourself and you just might find a new follower or two.

How to Publish Hypnotically Storys with Supreme Balance

Or: "How to Avoid Becoming Something of a Meme, a Trope, and a Laughingstock all on the Same Day"

Those of us hoping for a published byline one day have (hopefully vicariously) learned some valuable lessons this week. Here are some of the highlights:

1. Our work deserves our respect. Good writing requires more from us than just stringing words together on a page. We need to study our grammar and usage with a mind to improve them. If we think our work can't be improved, then we probably aren't paying attention to these things. A story or book worth publishing is worth getting right. 
2. Editors deserve our respect. If they won't accept our offerings, there is a reason. Maybe our copy needs some proofreading, and possibly some heavy editing. Sacrilege! This is nigh unthinkable when we think a project is finished. Think it anyway and hire a copy editor.
3. Our fellow writers deserve our respect. If someone offers an honest review, try accepting the result with grace and gratitude. If we cannot render this essential courtesy, then we should keep our mouths shut.
4. Our audience deserves our respect.  We should offer to them our best efforts, not something we pushed through a vanity press because the publishing industry didn't want it. If we cannot respect our readers enough to give them our best, then our stories should probably remain in our journals where no one will spurn or criticize them.

Writing is a business. If we have a problem with any aspect of this business, we should consider the source. Here's a hint about that: the source isn't the evil reviewer who panned our work. It's the work itself. Arrogance is never an appropriate response, and bouts of overweening martyrdom won't help our chances. Success in publishing often hinges on strong relationships within the industry. We writers should be building bridges, not burning them. 

Which of those are you doing?

Writing with Voice

"Voice is the imprint of ourselves in our writing. Take the voice away... and there's no writing, just words following words." -- Donald Graves


Ah, the holy grail of writing. The all-elusive Voice. That thing which hooks our readers, propels them through the pages, and compels them to keep going. Where does it come from? Does it define our work, or is it defined by it?

Perhaps it is the substance that Randy Ingermanson calls our "content". That inner wisdom woven together from our experience in the loom of our imaginations into the tapestry of our stories. Or something like that.

Yes, but how to develop our Voices as writers? Like the physical voice, our writing voice needs to be exercised in order to wax strong and melodious. Like our stories, it begins with its roots in the plain and ordinary. Through vigorous exercise, we build it and give it shape into the extraordinary.

One supposes it all goes back to the Writer's First Rule, no?

Alphabet Soup for the Soul

Having completed my first week in the freelance writing arena, I can say one thing with absolute authority: Wow.

Yes, indeed. There's an undeniable thrill to being able to set your own hours, pick and choose your projects, and more or less be your own boss. That's the good news. The bad news is what comes along with those undeniable thrills, and that's unfettered frustration.

Writing web content should be easy work for a writer, really. You choose bite size chunks of information and weave them together to show the average web reader something they possibly hadn't noticed or understood before. Do it in plain English that makes sense and people will love you for it. Best of all, they demonstrate this affection by showering you with hard earned cash. Right?

Well, sure. Unless one of your editors happens to be a computer who keeps rejecting your prize winning prose because it contains oft-repeated phrases that, if they were all legally copyrighted, would prevent anyone from ever publishing anything in the English language again. Then you find yourself mired in a hellish sort of alphabet soup, desperately trying to dig your way back out before the looming deadline devours your soul and spits it back at you after only partially digesting it.

Apparently, you also find yourself seriously wondering if, by comparison, writing that novel wouldn't be such a waste of your time after all...

Writing for "Real"

I submitted my first two freelance articles for approval. As of today, I write for actual pay. Livin' the dream, as it were... well, half the dream anyway. I'm ghost writing, so technically I don't get a byline and there won't be any publishing credit.

Still, as far as I'm concerned I've got the half of the dream that matters. It's hard to beat freelance work for the independence and flexible hours! Now: if my boss weren't such a bloody slavedriver, maybe I could get a vaction...

Oh, yeah. My second assignment hasn't been reviewed yet, but here's what the editor said about my first one:  "Writer shows potential - Will need to see another article to evaluate properly."

Given the hell and high water I had to wade through to get that assignment in, I'll take that as a compliment thankyouverymuch.

Writer's First Rule

I'm not sure specifically how many rules writers have. That's probably because we don't all have the same rulebook. But ask any successful writer what exactly it is that successful writers do, and they'll all eventually tell you the same thing: writers write! So to be a successful writer, you have to write, right?

Unfortunately, writing is also something that many unsuccessful writers do as well. So what's the difference between a "bad" writer and a "good" writer? Think about it for a moment or three.
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It's not quite as easy to answer that question unless you are (or know) a successful writer, is it? I suppose we can call it the Writer's Second Rule: Successful writers sell their work. To do this we have to give readers what they want to read, buyers what they want to buy, and editors what they want to edit. Yes?

I've noticed as well that the best of those sell themselves as well as their work. This is a process that the marketing world calls self-branding.

Just some food for thought. I could elaborate, but tonight this blog is about the writer's first rule: actual writing. We can figure out the rest of the rules some other time, no? Now, to quote Sinclair Lewis: "Why aren't you all at home writing?"