Ed’s Casual Friday: 10 Writing Commandments

The Ten CommandmentsOne of the noble goals here at Indies Unlimited is to help other writers along this dark and winding road of putting words down on paper. (Okay, I know. Only six people still write by hand, but bear with me). And of course after that, we’re all hoping to sell those words to the legions of eager readers who have been waiting their whole lives to partake of our literary mastery and storytelling prowess, whether they know it or not (they don’t).

Here at IU, and in every other place writers gather for that matter, that help is rendered in large part by giving advice. Most often, unsolicited advice. And that’s great, as we are all at different points along our writing road, and nobody has been doing this whole Indie/Digital publishing thing for more than a handful of years. Everybody has some experience they are willing (and sometimes falling over themselves) to share. If you can count on nothing else as a writer, you can be sure that somebody out there is going to tell you how they do this most individual and internal process of creation, and why you should do it their way, too. Continue reading “Ed’s Casual Friday: 10 Writing Commandments”

Dead Poets and Video Games

No one reads anymore. Kids are the worst offenders. Right? But why? I mean, I liked to read when I was a kid…so, what happened?  For six years, I was fortunate enough to work for a non-profit scholarship program in San Francisco. My teaching background was in reading remediation. I had grown accustomed to working with kids who were dealing with severe learning issues. Autistic kids. Kids with Central Auditory Processing Disorder. Kids with deep comprehension issues. I loved the challenge. It was a big change to work with kids who did not suffer from any diagnosable condition. These kids shared one common trait…they came from the poorest parts of San Francisco, the deepest recesses of the ghetto, and most of them read at about a second grade level. This is a problem if you are attending an exclusive Catholic High School.

Continue reading “Dead Poets and Video Games”

Words, and how to love them…

Author Valerie Douglas
Author Valerie Douglas

If any topic was foreordained to write, it was this one.  (No, I didn’t mean preordained, although I could have used that as well. *grins*)

First I saw this quote from Roy Blount, Jr. – “The last time somebody said, ‘I find I can write much better with a word processor.’, I replied, ‘They used to say the same thing about drugs.’ ”

Then I opened a lovely e-mail from a fan, the last line of which said, “Your book was fun and refreshingly intelligent in the genre (erotica), and therefore it not only made me happy to read it, but kind of renewed my faith that you can still write romance novels using wonderful words like ‘sere’.'” Wasn’t that wonderful? I wonder what she’ll do when she finds out that in the sequel the heroine is a physics professor who quotes string theory to explain magic? (And sere is a wonderful word, isn’t it?) Continue reading “Words, and how to love them…”

Work in progress…

It has been less than a year since I got serious about getting my writing ‘out there’. I thought I would share my experiences thus far. I have made some mistakes, but I’ve done some things right, too. Prior to embracing the web, I spent a lot of time accumulating stories on my computer and submitting to literary magazines that three people read. Then, I wised up. I self-published my novel, ‘Joe Café’, and started a few blogs. I joined Facebook and Twitter. I joined a few groups on Linkedin. I learned a lot of things. Some of them the hard way. Most of them by paying attention.

I played in punk bands when I was younger, so I came into this Indie writing thing with some prior experience in ‘the independent arts’. I knew that it was important to make contacts…not people you can ‘leverage’…friends. I knew that it was important to find like-minded people and work together towards a common goal. I knew that it was important to promote your friends’ work before your own. I knew that community was the most important thing.

Continue reading “Work in progress…”