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SkaAndScreenplays posted:I for the longest time have wanted to develop a word processor that has plugins for youtube/spotify/itunes/streaming services. Having the music there is a necessity for a lot of people, having the web browser open is a focus-crusher distraction. this is a great idea: pm crabrock he is a glorious techmonster
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Jul 4, 2015 12:03
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sebmojo posted:this is a great idea: pm crabrock he is a glorious techmonster Crabrock if interested email me - Email address in profile SkaAndScreenplays fucked around with this message at 14:45 on Jul 4, 2015 |
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Jul 4, 2015 14:41
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SkaAndScreenplays posted:
No, no no. See, people, this is why schizophrenics give bad writing advice (I kid). Seriously though, just because things are good separately doesn't mean they are good in combination. Please do not go for a walk while reading your book on your phone, it's dangerous; you'll get hit by car/fall down. Also, walks are for thinking, not reading. You read, figure out what you need to fix, then walk WITHOUT music and let your mind work. blue squares fucked around with this message at 15:38 on Jul 4, 2015 |
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Jul 4, 2015 15:07
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How many of you write blogs? What the hell do you write about to keep people interested in your book? Assuming it's fiction, I mean. (Non-fiction authors can regurgitate news articles that support their book, SO JEALOUS). I've signed with a publisher, got the MS ready to go, got the cover, it's all just sitting there, and they want me to increase my web presence. (yes I know it's a humblebrag but I'm making a point here...) When I was a gigging musician, that poo poo was easy because I could ramble on for hours about upcoming shows or previous shows or albums that inspired me. But I honestly don't want to dole out writing advice, (as much as I love throwing out idiot suggestions here) and what the hell else is there to write about that would keep readers interested in a book that hasn't come out yet? A blog on writing tips won't reach my target audience; I'm hoping my audience will be readers way more than writers. The author blogging world seems to be a gigantic closed circle, reaching other writers sure, but how do I write crap that'll reach crime/thriller readers? Write reviews of other thriller books?
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Jul 4, 2015 16:27
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blue squares posted:No, no no. See, people, this is why schizophrenics give bad writing advice (I kid). Seriously though, just because things are good separately doesn't mean they are good in combination. Please do not go for a walk while reading your book on your phone, it's dangerous; you'll get hit by car/fall down. Also, walks are for thinking, not reading. You read, figure out what you need to fix, then walk WITHOUT music and let your mind work. Hey - None of that advice had anything to do with writing...just reading, walking and listening to music and therefore multi-tasking and time management skills. Honestly though I don't listen to music while editing/revising especially because cleaning up words is way more intense than putting the first one down. And I don't actually suggest looking down while walking either. Good way to get jumped. Even headphones are a bad idea, I don't have an iPod to prove it.  Also if you want a good example of lovely-everything in storytelling go watch Leverage. I couldn't make it 5 minutes through the pilot. 'IT'S LIKE AN AMERICAN VERSION OF HUSTLE.' - Said the person who was either a liar or had lovely taste. SkaAndScreenplays fucked around with this message at 16:54 on Jul 4, 2015 |
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Jul 4, 2015 16:44
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magnificent7 posted:How many of you write blogs? What the hell do you write about to keep people interested in your book? Assuming it's fiction, I mean. (Non-fiction authors can regurgitate news articles that support their book, SO JEALOUS). I would say don't talk about writing so much as your writing. When I read an author focused blog I want to learn about their process, about their characters, their plot ideas. I want to hear about how they write when they have kids; or if they dont, what it's like to be a single author. I want to know what they're reading and authors they like. Don't think of it as advice; write from the perspective that people are interested in you and just do what you normally do with regards to making it interesting.
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Jul 4, 2015 19:16
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Alternatively, research some author blogs. Neil Gaiman talks a lot about his cool dogs and just stuff that's been on his mind. John Green uses his to talk about social issues connected to his books and promote his other stuff. Anne Rice uses her Facebook page to cosplay as a crazy cat lady. Generally just be yourself and say stuff. Try to keep it under 500 words or split it into chunks, because internet readers generally have shocking attention spans.
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Jul 4, 2015 23:27
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There's a dark diner and a light diner. She's not in either.
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Jul 5, 2015 09:51
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On the music thing, here's a great post with links to a lot of music that I find is perfect background for writing: Music Masterpost for Studying/Concentration. Currently listening to the Remember Me OST and knocking out my daily writing goal for The Long Walk.
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Jul 5, 2015 23:04
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It's the opposite problem, sometimes. I don't want to be found. In a car next to midnight chain links, in the stairs down to the gathering; in a pharmacy where I, tiny, follow. The other even not-finds me at the embassy, when I'm not from my country.
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Jul 7, 2015 22:44
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quite the fucker posted:It's the opposite problem, sometimes. I don't want to be found. In a car next to midnight chain links, in the stairs down to the gathering; in a pharmacy where I, tiny, follow. The other even not-finds me at the embassy, when I'm not from my country. please post your nonsensical ramblings here http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3527097
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Jul 7, 2015 23:28
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btw i know i asked about synposes before but i found this as of like ten minutes ago which was helpful in case Anyone Gives A poo poo http://graemeshimmin.com/how-to-write-a-novel-synopsis/
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Jul 11, 2015 06:00
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LOU BEGAS MUSTACHE posted:btw i know i asked about synposes before but i found this as of like ten minutes ago which was helpful in case Anyone Gives A poo poo As someone who Gives A poo poo, thanks. Past (failed) experiences have shown synopsis's are even harder to write than queries so I for one appreciate this.
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Jul 13, 2015 18:22
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Some productivity methods for writers (PSA: I wrote this): https://litreactor.com/columns/productivity-methods-for-writers
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Jul 18, 2015 09:54
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LOU BEGAS MUSTACHE posted:btw i know i asked about synposes before but i found this as of like ten minutes ago which was helpful in case Anyone Gives A poo poo That is extremely helpful. Sometimes after reading one of my own I sit and wonder if English is actually a language I understand.
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Jul 22, 2015 00:36
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Jul 22, 2015 13:48
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Since this thread is pretty dead I don't feel bad posting just to say I finished my second draft of my novel. Two and a half weeks total. Rewrote 50,000 out of the 60,000 words in my novel in two and a half weeks. also my book is still bad
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Jul 22, 2015 23:33
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Nice, a completed bad draft is better than no draft!
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Jul 22, 2015 23:41
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That's awesome. You are working quickly on that thing.
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Jul 22, 2015 23:42
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angel opportunity posted:Nice, a completed bad draft is better than no draft!
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Jul 23, 2015 02:23
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Nice! Congrats, you're getting further than 99% of people who ever set out to write. Mind if I ask what's the next step with the book?
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Jul 23, 2015 16:43
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Hungry posted:Nice! Congrats, you're getting further than 99% of people who ever set out to write. Keep doing more drafts until it is not poo poo
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Jul 23, 2015 17:16
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Jul 23, 2015 17:20
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blue squares posted:Keep doing more drafts until it is not poo poo Hell yeah man. Awesome job on 2 drafts down already!
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Jul 23, 2015 17:56
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dude stop posting my manuscript, or at least get to the good part where the clown car driven by the book with abs shows up
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Jul 23, 2015 19:41
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Screaming Idiot posted:the book with abs
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Jul 23, 2015 22:36
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wait
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Jul 23, 2015 23:34
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dont stop
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Jul 24, 2015 04:08
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The Saddest Rhino posted:dont stop believing
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Jul 24, 2015 08:23
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Sitting Here posted:believing oooh we're halfway there
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Jul 24, 2015 15:37
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Since we really don't have a non-self-pub thread... Let me share a cautionary tale of complete stupidity. The following events consumed my weekend at a time when I really needed to be doing other poo poo, like squeezing out the rest of this month's Long Walk words and getting my poo poo together to have an overly elaborate wedding ceremony in a language I don't speak. I have a couple of full manuscripts because I love to shart out bad words. I also have some projects with a co-author. He and I participated in a few pitch contests back in June. We got some hits from agents and small presses. One of the small presses is called Pandamoon Publishing. I checked out Pandamoon's website, researched them online, and asked a few people I know who have more experience with small presses than I do (and until recently, my experience level was 0 points). Pandamoon's principals did not seem to have any real prior publishing experience - they certainly weren't naming names if they had worked for publishers or agencies. The CEO, Zara Kramer, describes herself as a serial entrepreneur and marketer. From Linked In, her career looks like it's been mainly heavy industries stuff before she hopped on the small press bandwagon. Their book covers were unimpressive at best. Amazon showed that they (in June 2015) hadn't published anything on Amazon since 2014, and several books were out of print and only available for purchase through other parties. That was a little unnerving to see. Their available covers ranged from amateur to hideous despite promoting their in-house designer(s). I also found word that they've been struggling to hire staff, which isn't a great sign. All this to say that I didn't think they were professional or sufficiently experienced and they were much too young as a company for my tastes. I gave them a pass and moved on to query agents instead. My co-author decided to submit one of our manuscripts, though. He sent a query, synopsis, and partial per Zara's instructions. Within about a week, she requested a full manuscript. That was the last thing we heard for a few weeks -- not unusual at all. Saturday, he received an email from Pandamoon's submissions account notifying him that Pandamoon had set up an account for him at Authors.me and that they had moved his submission materials there. Authors.me hasn't been around for long. They bill themselves as the fastest-growing database of their kind. They are trying to become a one stop shop for agents and editors to peruse queries and manuscripts like Submittable. The site opened for beta testing in December 2014 and has almost no online footprint. I found three sources of information when I went hunting - a speaker list on Publish15, Pandamoon's own social media accounts, and a thread on Absolute Write about Pandamoon. This is how I learned that Pandamoon apparently signed up other authors without any prior notice. We weren't alone! Authors.me's terms of service include the irrevocable, perpetual (and non-exclusive) rights to all content posted to their site, including the ability to sub-license. I'll just quote the relevant bit: Authors.me Terms of Use posted:You hereby grant to Company a nonexclusive, worldwide, perpetual, royalty-free, sublicensable (through multiple tiers) right to exercise the copyright and publicity rights you have in the Submissions, in any media now known or not currently known. You agree that Company may store, translate, or re-format your Submissions on the Services and display your Submissions on the Services in any way Company chooses. This is what we were signed up for without our knowledge or consent. My co-author had not explicitly waived any rights in his emails with submissions@pandamoon.com. He had neither received nor signed a contract. Pandamoon moved our materials over to Authors.me for their own convenience without giving any attention to this blatant rights grab. Pandamoon provided our personal information, query letter, synopsis, and full manuscript to Authors.me. When my co-author logged in, he found that he could not delete the account or edit its contents - the options had all been grayed out. He took screenshots of everything. I inquired with other authors who reported that they had been signed up by Pandamoon for Authors.me and found out that the ability to edit accounts had either been completely removed or obscured shortly after one of them started asking Pandamoon and Authors.me on Twitter. My co-author immediately emailed Pandamoon to withdraw our submission from consideration, then emailed the Authors.me contact email to request that his author account be deleted, given that he was signed up without his consent. At this point, I figured Authors.me might gently caress with us, so I started looking into how to file a DMCA takedown and I registered to Absolute Write so I could help corroborate other authors' stories. gently caress it - these guys deserve to have some light shed on them. By Sunday, there were two totally different stories up about why we could not delete our Authors.me accounts. Zara made a blog post on the Pandamoon blog to the effect that account deletion had not been developed for the Authors.me platform and Pandamoon had not been aware of this. Zara also disclosed that Pandamoon is Authors.me's launch partner. @AuthorsQuery, run by David O'Brien (one of the Authors.me founders), claimed that the deletion function had been removed because Authors.me didn't want any authors accidentally deleting their accounts. After all, that meant the authors would have to go through the submission and query process on Authors.me again! David O'Brien started to back down from the Terms of Service quoted above, but as far as I can tell, nothing has changed. He appears to be making good on deleting accounts Pandamoon set up for authors, though I cannot verify right now whether my co-author's account was deleted. I'll follow up here when I can. We have not heard from Zara or Pandamoon since withdrawing our submission. Basically, as someone else put it, Pandamoon indulged a sloppy rights grab from Authors.me for the sake of convenience. Pandamoon's principals apparently did not read Authors.me's terms of service; in general, they neglected to perform reasonable due diligence, and showed poor judgment in disclosing submitters' personal information to a third party. We have their reassurance that only Pandamoon (and, naturally, Authors.me) can see the materials loaded into our accounts, but we do not have any way to confirm this. I do not know how secure Authors.me is, I do not know exactly how much information was shared with them, and I know vanishingly little about their CEO. What I do know is that Pandamoon doesn't behave professionally and probably shouldn't be trusted with unpublished work.
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Jul 27, 2015 16:23
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Get an agent guys
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Jul 27, 2015 16:36
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A new day, a new scam.
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Jul 27, 2015 16:54
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Have you contacted Preditors & Editors about them?
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Jul 27, 2015 17:31
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Keromaru5 posted:Have you contacted Preditors & Editors about them? I haven't, thanks for the reminder. I'm sure someone else has, but more voices can't hurt. Victoria Strauss from Writers Beware seems to know about this, but Writers Beware is on hiatus right now.
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Jul 27, 2015 17:40
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Good. I actually entered a couple of pitch contests, too--#70pit and Pitch to Publication. I didn't place in either one, but one of the editors associated with the latter liked my partial, and offered me a discount on a full manuscript critique. I should be getting it back in the next few days. On one hand, all I ever really wanted was a set of professional (or at least semi-professional) eyes to look at my manuscript. On the other hand, I'm just now starting to get nervous about what she'll say. I'm hoping her advice will help with my agent search. I actually got a couple of full manuscript requests last year, but one got rejected, and the other I haven't heard back from in nine months, after four nudges. ***EDIT*** I've actually found lately that I can handle the critiques and rejections themselves. It's the waiting I can't stand. Especially that last span of time between getting the reply and reading it. Keromaru5 fucked around with this message at 02:16 on Jul 28, 2015 |
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Jul 28, 2015 01:53
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I entered SFF pitch, pitch to pub, and page 70. I had better luck with the first and got some partial requests out of it, which was exciting. One has rejected, two outstanding. I'm concentrating on revising right now instead of querying more. (Also just trying to write faster.) A lot of editors started offering discounts around the tail end of pitch to pub and page 70 pitch, so I get the sense that it's a way to build a client pool for them. Not sure how I feel about that? It's very practical of them, but also feels weird. Actually, Samantha Fountain built a site like Authors.me--Writer Pitch--down to the ToS. I think hers launched earlier, though. Waiting is the worst part. I sulked a bit after my first rejections but it also felt kinda cool because even a form R is an acknowledgment. e: Didn't want to double post but here's an update - received a response this morning (7/29) from yourfriends@authors.me by David O'Brien that he is in the process of removing our materials and deleting our account. POOL IS CLOSED fucked around with this message at 15:11 on Jul 29, 2015 |
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Jul 28, 2015 02:59
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I'm wrestling with an issue in the novel I'm writing. I should mention that this might not even be a real problem and just something in my head. I'll try to explain it as clearly as possible. Without going into unnecessary detail the issue I'm facing is one of balancing pacing with world building in the beginning of a fantasy novel. There are a bunch of main characters in the story who all do things simultaneously that affect an overall plot, a la game of thrones sort of. However the 'most' main character who will likely be receiving half the chapters eventually but he doesn't actually show up until ~25k-30k words into the story. In addition I don't know if I like that the first ~20k words of the story doesn't involve anything particularly exciting. It's all important world building, setting the stage and big plot points, but not like 'two dudes fighting to the death' interesting. So i don't know whether I want to put in a chapter just to spice things up a bit, maybe also introduce the main character prior to when he would appear in the story normally. So the basic problem is two fold. Firstly i don't like the pacing as it exists so far and I'm worried about it being too slow to start compared to most of the other books I read in the genre. It might not even be a problem as I think it is but I'm not sure anyway. Secondly I don't know if it's okay to introduce the main character 30% of the way through a book. Without typing up a huge summary of why it's important to introduce the main character late let's just say I have a few options. 1. I can leave everything the way it is, saying that it's okay for arguably the most important character and the one I want to focus the most on show up relatively late to the party. 2. I can introduce the main character earlier in the book in a short chapter that just sets him up as a character as he deals with something or other just so he shows up earlier but leave the story of how he shows up later unchanged. This might take some of the impact out of him showing up later though, given the way he's going to be introduced. 3. i can just trash the whole way he shows up as written and come up with another reason to connect the two characters I want to connect. This could allow him to show up earlier and feel like a more central character out of the gate but it would take some mental acrobatics to connect the 2 characters in the way I want and not have it feel weird. It's hard to explain why without just writing out exactly whats happening in the book. If this is too vague for anybody to help with I can absolutely be more concise about everything. I'm just trying to avoid a massive effortpost. I'm just looking for opinions on early pacing in a fantasy book that takes a fair bit of set up as well as introducing the most major player in the story very late.
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Aug 6, 2015 13:05
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Agent355 posted:Secondly I don't know if it's okay to introduce the main character 30% of the way through a book. I know nothing about fantasy but I do know that I would never do this. If something feels wrong, it almost certainly is.
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Aug 6, 2015 13:30
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Without knowing your story more, I recommend having a teaser chapter in the front where "main" character is doing something that creates anticipation. Then go back and start introducing everyone else. Remember to show not tell when you're world building. Not having lots of didactic paragraphs about the monetary system of feregenar will make it a faster read. You'd be surprised how little we need to "understand" the world
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Aug 6, 2015 13:33
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