I touched a 400-year-old book yesterday

An original King James Bible

I love old books. I have a whole shelf full of vintage books, and I even own a history book from the 1600s. But yesterday I had the opportunity to turn the pages of an original King James Bible, printed on Gutenberg's printing press in 1611.

The book is in amazing condition for its age. The cover was replaced, but the pages are intact and easy to read. Because the paper was made from cotton (like money), it lasts a lot longer than paper made from wood pulp.

Of the four bibles I saw yesterday, the oldest was printed in the 1500s. All these bibles came with a guarantee of being burned at the stake if you so much as looked at them. You can imagine what happened to the men who translated and printed them. Yup.

These historic books are part of a traveling exhibit of volumes that show bibles throughout history. Included in the show are pieces of of the Dead Sea scrolls and cuneiform tablets with Old Testament writings. Also shown are ancient coins, pictographs, medieval rabbinic scrolls, and even hand-written commentaries from Martin Luther.

The Bible Through History show will run in Colorado Springs at the Glen Eyrie castle from September 1-12, 2012. If you're in the area, it's a fantastic history lesson, and not just for people of faith. Imagine if your own self-publishing efforts put your life in danger.  

How motivated would you be to get your books into print?

The guide holding the 1500s bible. The King James is the largest one.

Back-to-life Motivation

Just a quick post today. We're celebrating my daughter's 21st birthday, and her return to college. We'll head out to a drive-in movie with a huge cheesecake to share.

I'm all about motivating myself to write these days. With a summer full of family activities, home renovation, fires, and mudslides, it's hard to find the same energy to write that I had in the spring. One of the reasons is that I haven't met with any of my critique groups for a while. It's time to get those meetings back on the schedule.

For today, here's a fantastic post from author and writing teacher Les Edgarton's blog. He's the author of Hooked, a great writing book focused on hooking the reader. In this post, Edgarton shares the story of one of his writing students, where she realizes she has really become a writer. It took hard work, and she has an incredibly busy life, but she did it. And now she has an agent and a multi-book to go along with her work ethic. 

How's your motivation during these back to school days? Did you get more writing done during the summer, or are you looking forward to a solid fall schedule?

The Olympics vs. Novel Writing

My son Daniel at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, CO.

Why have most of us been glued to the Olympic games the past few weeks? Is it just because it occurs only once every couple of years? 

I think it's more than that.

We get pulled into the athletes lives. We worry about them. Their prospects, their injuries, their personal challenges.

We felt the incredible disappointment when Jordyn Wieber didn't make the all around in gymnastics. We cringed when Jen Kessy had to take a medical timeout from her volleyball competition to warm her freezing feet. We rooted for runner Oscar Pistorius whose legs were amputated at age eleven months and for Cullen Jones, who learned to swim after a near drowning.

We see (thanks to the media) glimpses of the athletes' backstory--but not too much. If all the coverage was about the athletes' history, and not about what they're accomplishing or attempting right now, the backstory would have little meaning. It's the slice of backstory that adds depth to the individual's character, adds meaning to their goals, and makes their victories and triumphs so easy to share.

How about your novel? 

Is it so weighed down by backstory that your character doesn't do much except think about the past? All the Olympic athletes wouldn't have made it to London if they spent their time agonizing over their challenges or the unfairness of life. Let your character be impacted by his or her history. Let it make them stronger, more vulnerable, more fallible, but don't let it consume them and keep them from moving forward.

Is it too free of backstory? A character who acts without any connection to their past, their baggage, their life lessons, is not three-dimensional. What if the media only covered what the athletes did in the 'now', and ignored what they've overcome to get to that point? Watching elite athletes win medals would be a whole lot less compelling. It's the emotion we watch on the medal stand that tugs at our hearts. Seeing the athlete realize success after so many years of hard work, deprivation, and focus pulls us into their story. Are you so fearful of including backstory that you miss this connection to your readers' hearts?

For more information on creating unobtrusive backstory, check out this series titled "Making Your Reader Love Backstory" by author and writing teacher Randy Ingermanson. His four-part series will make you a backstory expert.

Part 1| Part 2| Part 3| Part 4

Read through your manuscript with balance in mind. A balance between enough backstory to give meaning to your character's present actions, decisions, failures and successes. Have the Olympics inspired your writing in other ways?

It's Time for WriteOnCon: a free online writing conference

It's that time again. A conference for those of us who don't have tons of money, tons of time, or who live so far out that flying to a writing conference is out of the question. WriteOnCon is back. On August 14th and 15th, writers will engage through thirty-five workshops, forums, keynotes, and live events.

One of the coolest things WriteOnCon is doing this year is called Ninja Agents. In this forum, you can post your writing sample or query letter, and one of thirteen agents will stop in from time to time and post comments. It's possible to get agent requests from this forum. Even if you attended an in-person conference, you'd be hard-pressed to pitch to that many agents.

 Who are the Ninja Agents? Here's a list (links are to those highlighted on Agent Friday posts):

Natalie Fischer, with Bradford Literary
Michelle Andelman, with Regal Literary
Kathleen Ortiz, with Nancy Coffey Literary
Ammi-Joan Paquette, with Erin Murphy Literary
Jessica Sinsheimer, with Sarah Jane Freymann
Roseanne Wells, with Marianne Strong Literary
Joanna Volpe, with Nancy Coffey Literary
Weronika Janczuk, with Lynn C. Franklin
Suzie Townsend, with FinePrint Literary
Carlie Webber, with the Jane Rotrosen Agency
Alyssa Eisner Henkin, with Trident Media
Marietta Zacker, with Nancy Gallt Literary

Kat Salazar, with Larsen Pomada Literary Agents

 Some of the workshops and sessions planned this year are:

* How to Get Started With Social Media: DON’T Do All The Things!

* Choosing the Right Critique Partners

* Hooks and Killer First Lines

* Picture Book Query Critiques 

* What is Voice, and How do I Get it?

* World-building in Science Fiction and Fantasy

* Plotting with 3×5 cards

* Building Characters into Real People

* He Said, She Said, Creating sexual tension through dialog

* Differences between YA and MG and the challenges of writing both

* The Inside Scoop: Get Your Query Noticed

~and there's lots more.

Want to join in? Here are the basics:

Click here for the super-quick registration.

Check out the amazing faculty here and here.

Do you think you'll attend? I've already got several workshops marked down. And if your schedule won't allow you to participate live, just check the forums when you can. Everything will still be there.

How to create an online newspaper from your tweets

 Today we have a guest post from Dianne E. Butts, an author and screenwriter. I had never heard of Paper.li before, and Butts explains it so well. I've been reading her newsletter for several years, and she always posts helpful information. All her newsletter articles are on her blog, Dianne E. Butts About Writing, if you'd like to check it out.

Image courtesy of Stock.xchng

Twitter and Paper.li, by Dianne E. Butts

Last month we talked about Making the Most of Twitter including how to write effective Tweets, the 3 Parts every good Tweet needs, and programs that will schedule your Tweets for you.

Another exciting program I've learned about since then uses your Twitter Tweets to create an online newspaper! Some of you many already know about Paper.li. (http://paper.li/).

I had seen a few Paper.li's, but I didn't know much about them. Then recently author and speaker Linda Evans Shepherd set up a few of these papers and taught me more about them. I so appreciate Linda! I've known her since my very first writer's conference more than twenty years ago. Linda has written more than thirty books and has been a mentor to me for all those twenty years I've known her. Let me tell you what I've learned from Linda about Paper.li in the past couple of months, and I'll use her Paper.li's as examples.

Paper.li is a daily newspaper system that picks up links off of Twitter to create the newspaper. I haven't set one up yet, but it seems you can put in the Twitter handles of the people whose Twitters you want to include. So, for example, Linda set up The AWSA Daily and included the Twitter handles of the members of the Advanced Writers and Speakers Association. That includes me! ;-)

So now, Paper.li searches the Tweets from AWSA members searching for links, and when it finds them, it compiles them into a newspaper!

Is it legal? Yes. Is it plagiarism? No, because the paper doesn't use your whole article, it only picks up the first few sentences (within fair use) and then links to your article. So people who want to read your article are taken straight to the source.

How to get in: Just a Tweet will not do. You must include a link to an article to get into the Paper.li newspaper. It will pick up photos in the articles you link to also.

Please note that the creator of the Paper.li newspaper has absolutely no control over which Twitter links of yours get picked up. And when they are picked up, they cannot be removed. So don't put a link in your Twitter that you might find embarrassing later and you'll have nothing to worry about. (But, honestly, you shouldn't be doing that anyway, right?)

You don't have to be informed that you're Twitter handle is in some one's Paper.li. I first started seeing Paper.li's a year or so ago when my articles starting showing up in one about Colorado writers. I think maybe someone sent me a link to the Paper.li. Yeah,I was surprised. I had no idea why...or how...I got in that paper. Now I know!

You can subscribe to Paper.li's. They're free. Here's another one of Linda's. Look for the "Subscribe" button in the upper right corner: The Shepherd Post. As a matter of fact, why don't you subscribe for a while so you can see how this works? You can always unsubscribe if you don't want it any more.

You can choose whether you want your Paper.li's to come out daily, twice daily, or weekly. I believe all of Linda's are daily papers.

I can hear that questions you're asking: So how can I use this to benefit my writing? Here are several ideas:
* Getting more exposure for your online blogs and articles in an obvious answer, but there's more.
* You can make your own Paper.li's. Create one for your organization, a topic that is your passion, or the topic you write on. Then your own writings will get featured in your own Paper.li.
*  Create a Paper.li that serves people on an issue that is close to your heart. Another one of Linda's Paper.li's is all about suicide prevention: ThinkingAboutSuicide.
*  Do you need ideas or resources for your writing? Then subscribe to Paper.li's on topics that interest you and have a daily feed of resources.

When you find you've been included in a Paper.li, use it's Twitter link to Tweet a link to that issue. Retweet when other's Tweet your favorite Paper.li or one you're featured in. And use the Facebook share button to send a post to your Facebook account.

Remember, for Paper.li to pick up your articles, you must Tweet it and include a link to your article. Paper.li searches for links, and picks them up at random.

Whether you want exposure for your own writing, need information coming to you to use for your own writing, or see other uses for Paper.li, it is a great resource and it is great fun to see your articles featured in them! Start a Paper.li...and have fun!

Dianne E. Butts has been writing for periodicals for twenty years with 300 articles published in more than 50 Christian print magazines and has contributed to nineteen books. Her latest book, Deliver Me, offers hope for those in an unexpected pregnancy by sharing true stories of others in that position. Her first book, Dear America: A Letter of Comfort and Hope to a Grieving Nation, written after 9/11, shares what she's learned about getting through grief, why she still believes in God even when horrible things happen, the story of the gospel, how to go on with God, who the Muslims are...and more. She's ridden motorcycles for more than thirty years. Member: Christian Motorcyclists Association. Member Advanced Writers and Speakers Association.

RWA Keynote Speech

 If you weren't one of the many who attended the Romance Writers of America conference recently, you might be interested in this keynote address by author Stephanie Laurens. She has generously posted her keynote and the accompanying powerpoint slides on her website.

Laurens' post, titled Weathering the Transition . . . Keeping the Faith, is a wonderful analysis of publishing today, and how it differs from the model in the past. She shares how there are actually four different avenues in the online publishing industry where stories are passed from the author to the reader. There used to be only one way the reader received stories from an author. Times are changing. 

Laurens also points out that of the list of authors, publishers, retailers, and readers, only two are absolutely critical. Can you guess which ones?

This transcript is a perfect read for those who are mulling over going the self-publishing route. Check it out and let me know what you think.

Use Photos to Make Your Blog Show Up On Search Engines

Photo courtesy of Stock.chng

After the discussion of blog photos and how to keep from getting sued, I thought I'd mention one additional thing that can help bloggers who use photos. This tip has nothing to do with copyright, but helps the search engines to "see" the photos you upload. 

I learned this tip from Alexa, the site where you can have your blog analyzed for optimization. Just using a photo with the typical "DSCN66007.jpg" does not allow search engines like Google to "see" them. If you want your photos to help bring readers to your site, there are three things to do.

Rename. It's easy to rename a photo. Just like a file name, click on it to highlight the file name, and give it the name you want. But don't just describe the picture, give it a name that will mean something to the search engine. Think keywords. If it's a picture of a beach ball for your post on reading on the beach, you could call it "great beach reads"

Separate. Next, you'll separate the words of your photo label. Use either a dash or an underscore. For the beach ball example, you'd use "great-beach-reads" or "great_beach_reads".

Add. Lastly, you'll add the magic ingredient. I don't know why this works so well, but Alexa said to do it, and it has magical results. Add the letters "alt" to the end of your photo tag. So our examples above would end up looking like these: "great-beach-reads-alt.jpg" or "great_beach_reads-alt.jpg".

Somehow, doing these three simple things makes the photos you use visible to the search engines. Using Sitemeter, I've noticed that a huge amount of my blog traffic comes from Google images. That was not the case before I began renaming my photos. Some photos I've used appear in the first position on Google images. That increases the likelihood of someone ending up on my blog. Give it a try--it might work well for you, too.

Has anyone else tried this technique? I'd love to hear your experiences, and if you have other tips to share.

Keep from getting sued for the photos on your blog

I read agent Kristin Nelson's post on Friday, where one of her clients shared how she was sued for posting a photo on her blog. The story is a cautionary one for all of us who use photos to make our blog posts more interesting.

Roni Loren, author of Crash Into You, became embroiled in a lawsuit after posting a photo on her blog. The photographer (within his rights) asked her to take it down, but subsequently sued Loren for damages. Read the whole story in Loren's blog post. The comments are worth reading, too.

Loren admits she was in error, though she had no idea that being ignorant of the law is not an excuse. She shares tips with bloggers to prevent them from finding themselves in the same situation she encountered. Loren gives links to sites where bloggers can find photos that are truly free to use, and also shares more information from her friend Meghan Ward.

It's important for those of us who blog to read this information carefully, and use it to help decide what we share on our blogs. But not only there, because the rules of copyright also apply to Facebook, Pinterest, and Tumblr, among many others.

As writers, we'd hate for someone to share our words without attribution, permission, or compensation. Photographers endure this all the time. For myself, I use either my own photos, or those from Stock.xchng, a free site with a huge number of images.

How do you handle images on your blog? Do you stay away from them completely? Only use your own? Or pay for the ones you use?

Write a novel with Camp Nanowrimo

Let's face it. November is not the greatest month for writing a complete novel. Gearing up for the major holidays takes some effort and attention. Throw in school, work, and sports schedules, and it's not hard to see why many "Wrimos" don't complete the 50,000 word goal.

Summer is different. It feels different. You're not tied to all the same school-year schedules, even if you don't get much time off work. 

So the folks at Nanowrimo came up with Camp Nanowrimo. During the months of June and August, participants have the opportunity to write a 50,000 word novel, with all the support and prizes the organization is known for.

Why should you give it a try? 

It's a great way to get that first draft down on paper. Pushing myself to keep writing instead of re-editing the first chapters ad nauseum is the only way the book will get finished.

You don't feel so alone when so many others are sweating over their keyboards along with you. The Nanowrimo forums are a fantastic place to find new friends in your genre, and to share resources and tips.

You can challenge your kids. A young writers edition of Camp Nanowrimo is available for kids who want to set their own writing goals. Imagine how motivating it would be to try to stay ahead of your kids' word output.

If you're considering giving it a try for the August 1st session, it's necessary to prepare as much as possible ahead of time. Here are some links to resources I've collected that are really helpful:

Several free Nanowrimo workbooks to plan your novel.

An introduction to the Nanowrimo forums.

A list of more free resources for Nanowrimo participants.

Do you find writing in the summer to be easier or more difficult to schedule? Would you rather try Nanowrimo in the fall? I'd love to hear what you think.