Tag: advice for authors

Introduction to Tumblr

Kat CantwellGuest Post
by Kat Cantwell

My mum – Lynne Cantwell, to you lot – mentioned that IU was looking for a post on Tumblr, since it’s such a black hole to so many Indie authors, but it’s becoming a ‘thing,’ of late. (At least, it is among people in their mid-teens to early 30s.) So I was asked if I could give a bit of a crash course.

Tumblr is this interesting and sometimes confusing cross between a blog and Pinterest (I suppose is the best way to describe it). While it can certainly be used as a blog, most people don’t go that route, because it’s not hard to lose text posts in what tends to be a very image-heavy medium. Tumblr is also mostly used to share things that other people post; I rarely post anything of my own, but I’m always reposting something that other people have (re)posted. Continue reading “Introduction to Tumblr”

Should a Writer Have a Blog?

Typing via PresentationPro MSPubA reader asked: “I’m curious about one thing in particular, at this moment. How important is having a blog and lots of comments to a writer’s success? Reason I ask: I started blogging almost a year ago, and got sidetracked with blogging. I’m now thinking of changing my schedule from posting twice per week to once every two weeks, just to make more time for my writing projects. ”

How important is a blog to a writer? Continue reading “Should a Writer Have a Blog?”

Name Droppers

I was talking the other day with E.L. James and Hugh Howey about what a bunch of name-droppers we writers are.

Okay, maybe that part didn’t happen, and I don’t mean name-dropper in the conventional sense. I mean that as writers, we have actually dropped certain names from literature.

When we choose our characters’ names, we use the opportunity to enhance the reader’s mental image of the character. Certain names just don’t seem to do that as well, so we drop them from the lexicon. They may not be totally gone, but to the extent they are used at all, they are given to minor characters. Continue reading “Name Droppers”

The Synchronistic Tale of an Author’s Journey into TV (Part 2)

Guest Post
by Crystal Storm

Getting the call that local Louisiana Producer/Director Aaron Williams wanted to turn Synarchy into a movie was the easiest part of a very long, challenging journey.

The reality of independent productions is like nothing you’re going to read on Google, and my situation was a little unique. Authors usually don’t get to write their own scripts. There are very good reasons for this. As authors we have a severe emotional attachment to our precious words. When your transforming book to film, you need to understand that things are going to change. Sometimes they’ll change in a big way; unnecessary characters, side plots, twisting the story to make it more suitable for the demands of the entertainment industry, it can be a tough pill to swallow. Add to that, that script writing is so utterly different from book writing. Continue reading “The Synchronistic Tale of an Author’s Journey into TV (Part 2)”