Tag: Writing

I Get By With a Little Help From My …

You’re up at 5:30 in the morning. The glow from your cave-like writing space provides a small level of companionship—that, and the voices in your head. If you’re like me, getting up early is not fun. There’s something wrong about being up before the sun. It doesn’t matter though, because you’ve found your passion and this is the only time you have to write. After pounding out a quick 1,000 words, you shift gears and get the kids ready for school or pack up and head to the office for your “real” job.

It’s a scenario that thousands, if not millions, of writers struggle through each day. How do you balance the dream of writing and publishing with the reality of putting food on the table?

We here at Indies Unlimited believe that self-publishing is the way to go. That being said, it’s still good to review what happens on the other side. A recent Author’s Guild Survey reported that the average author earns about $10,000 per year. If you break it down into categories; First time authors make between $4,000 and $10,000 per year, midlist authors range between $20,000 and $40,000 a year and the A-list can make between $60,000 to $100,000 per year. This is not taking into consideration the outliers like a Stephen Hise King or J.K. Rowling. Continue reading “I Get By With a Little Help From My …”

A Helping Hand…Shortcuts

Reviewer Cathy Speight

As well as reviewing books, I have taken on a role as an editor/proofreader. It’s something I really enjoy doing and a task from which I get a tremendous amount of satisfaction. It’s like renovating an old relic. I get quite a frisson from unearthing a pristine and shiny new treasure.

When an author and I discuss how best to approach the task with regard to the proofing options, I am often greeted with, “Oh, I’m not a techie, I can just about manage to switch the computer on!”

I have gone on quite a number of Microsoft courses in my working life and I had to prepare and edit countless geological reports for a slightly dyslexic geologist. I therefore know my way around Word (along with Powerpoint (many, many presentations) and Excel) quite well, so I just wondered if I might point the ‘L’ (learner) plate authors to a nifty little site that explains those rather handy shortcuts that will make your word-processing life a little easier. When I say ‘learner’ authors, I do mean in a word-processing capacity. (Phew! That was close).

Anyone who knows that CTRL C is a shortcut for Copy and has that Duh! expression can look away now! Continue reading “A Helping Hand…Shortcuts”

Ed’s Casual Friday: In Defense of Infodumping

dumpLadies and Gentlemen, if it pleases the court, allow me to say a few words on behalf of the condemned – the much maligned and detested “Infodump.” Just a few final words before “Dumpy,” as he is known among friends, is marched off to his execution by firing squad.

First, I’d like to repeat the assertion that what we have here may in part be a case of mistaken identity. It was not so long ago that “infodump” was a very specific term, meaning only the particular type of exposition where two or more characters are telling each other stuff that they should already know. It was most common in play- and screenwriting, and actually is pretty much how Anton Chekov starts all his plays, The Cherry Orchard included. Though nobody bats an eye when Lyuba is walking toward the door and Lopakhin tells Dunyasha, who have both known Lyuba their whole lives: “She’s lived abroad for five years…She’s a fine woman. Easy, straightforward.” Continue reading “Ed’s Casual Friday: In Defense of Infodumping”

The Return of Frankenstein

Frankenstein is a writer’s game wherein a story is composed of sentences contributed by different authors. We play this game a lot in Book Junkies, and everyone has a lot of fun with it.

So, I’ll kick it off with a prompt sentence, then you guys each add a sentence in the comment thread. Each subsequent sentence should feed off the sentence before it in the thread. So, let’s see what monster of a story we can stitch together.

One note though: PG-13 type blog—keep it clever but clean.

Prompt sentence:

Belinda had felt good about the interview until the final question.

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