Las Vegas is an exciting town for musicians, performers, and artists of all types. But there’s one gap: writers. While there are several large writing groups in the area, I noticed that there doesn’t seem to be much support for eBook creators. So, I started a local group here that will meet a couple of times a month and provide coaching and support.

Why not join us? You can register for the group in general, and specific meetings at: http://www.meetup.com/eBook-Creators-of-Las-Vegas/. I sure hope you’ll come out to a meeting!

(Super secret spoiler: I’ve also got a new audio product on the way that I’ll be sharing with Members of this group first…)

I’m proud to be sponsoring several events in Nanaimo, BC throughout November, and into December, for the international NaNoWriMo competition.

If you’re in the Nanaimo, BC area, please come out and join us for one of the events listed here, at Meetup.com.

We’d love to meet you!

I’m super proud to be speaking at this year’s The Word On The Street Festival in Vancouver, BC. On Sunday, September 26th, the other two Book Broads and I will be hosting a FREE panel titled “Build it and they will come – NAH!” It’s all about book marketing, publicity, and generally being in people’s faces.

The description of our talk goes something like this: “Many writers assume once the book is complete, it will sell itself, right? Wrong. No matter the method of publication — traditionally published, entrepreneurially published, or electronically published — the onus of promotion falls on the author. The Book Broads offer practical advice for writers (published or not) to raise their profiles, extend their reach and build their fan base.
Join Angela Crocker, Kimberly Plumley, and Peggy Richardson as they take the sting out of the overwhelming prospect of media interviews, blog posts, Facebook updates, podcasting, and so much more.”

Queue up early! We start at 1:45pm downstairs in the Peter Kaye room of the main branch of the Vancouver Public Library. (Yeah, that building that looks like the Roman Colloseum.)

See you there!

I’ll be speaking at Northern Voice (#nv10) this weekend in Vancouver, Canada. This is the Canadian personal blogging and social media conference that’s now in its’ sixth year, and is being held at the Life Sciences Centre out at UBC.

I’m very proud to be co-presenting with Angela Crocker and Kim Plumley as The Book Broads. The title of our talk is “Flog Your Blog“, which is all about how to turn your blog into a book. The talk is scheduled for 1:45pm on Saturday May 8th, in room 1510. (That’s a bigger room than we were originally scheduled to use.)

Topics we’ll cover include;

- traditional publishing vs. self-publishing
- how to tell if your blog is a good candidate for publishing
- examples of bloggers who’ve successfully turned their blogs into books
- what *not* to do to turn your blog into a book
- how to use social media in conjunction with traditional publicity to help market your book
- how to choose the right options for various types of publishing
- eBooks vs. print books (and other options you may not have considered)
- how to market your book long before it’s published
- what the real job of a successful Author is
- your first, second and third steps to get it happening

I’ll be following up this session with my workshop on June 19th in Langley (near Vancouver, Canada), the eBook Jumpstart: http://ebookjumpstartlangley.eventbrite.com/.

Hope to see you all there!

I’ve recently started playing WOW for the first time, which makes me a pretty late bloomer as Gamers go. But it’s interesting what I’ve learned while playing.

For those of you not initiated, Warcraft is the world’s largest online game community, with roughly 11 million players worldwide. For a modest $15-ish dollars a month, you can create a fantasy character (or multiple characters) that allows you to run around a rather sophisticated world called Azeroth. With several continents and types of environments, Azeroth is a somewhat bronze-age style universe with an exciting array of weapons, magical people and places, and really great outfits. Players can interact with each other, even players that may live a great distance from you in the real world.

I’m still what’s considered a casual player. I play about 3-4 times a week for as much as a couple of hours at a time. If someone had asked me 6 months ago if I had a spare 6 hours a week, I would have laughed and stated a firm “no”. But since like most players, I typically log in sometime between 10pm and 4 am, it seems I’ve found the time.

I started playing as a sort of experiment, part of my self-challenge to try new things and test my brain’s ability to create new neuron pathways. I was surprised then I enjoyed it, and further surprised when I realized I was learning new things about myself as a writer and as a person, simply by playing the game. Such as…

Patience

I will never be a level 80 character. But, I’ve discovered I’m happy being a level 20. A person as competitive as myself should be anxious to ‘level up’, as they say. But really, the number next to my name is no longer important. I had no idea when I started now long it would take to become proficient at this game, because I had no previous gaming experience, and I had no idea how sophisticated gaming had become. Now, I see other level 1 characters standing in the street, their players presumably checking their maps or reading the manual, and I realize how much I’ve learned. But I know why I’m here – it’s to relax and enjoy the game, not the win or lose.

I Need A Lifebar in My 3d World

The little gauge that hovers over the head of my character tells me vital stats about myself and about others with whom I interact in the game. I need one of these in real life, but instead of how much life my character has left, it will rack up my calories consumed so far in a day. I need the secondary mana bar to track how much room I have left on my credit card. A little “duel” symbol will appear every time I’m wrestling my child into her school clothes, and a little “zzz” will appear anytime I’m tired and sit down for a quiet few minutes, so that no-one will bother me. Other people will have their names hover over their heads, so that I’m no longer embarrassed by not being able to remember names at networking events. In reality, I’m developing little tricks for myself to improve my self-organization and memory.

I Like Flinging Fireballs At Things

Sometimes, being aggressive and taking sides is OK. I’ve held back releasing a few essays and articles because I’m worried that my position on a less-popular side of the fence might not win friends and influence people. Instead, I now think it might be OK to be a little controversial, and not try to please everyone. Holding back makes for very boring blog posts.

I’m a little bit Alliance, and a little bit Horde

Sometimes good and bad is not black and white. I have characters in both factions, and I play them approximately equally. They both have advantages and disadvantages. My primary Alliance (traditional good guys) character is a huntress, and my primary Horde (traditional bad guys) character is a Mage, which is a magician/priestess-type role. I’ve never encountered a character from either faction that didn’t play with honour. And being challenged to a duel by a massive and high-ranking Horde character is very flattering. Especially when it’s done politely. In my 3d world, I’m trying to be slower to judge, and to let myself be open to possibilities I had not previously considered.

People Can Surprise You

I can’t believe who else plays this game. The genteel and very ladylike mother of one of my Authors surprised me by offering to help with a game problem that I posted on my FaceBook profile. Turns out she has multiple level 80 characters. Her son tells me, “Oh yeah – Mom’ll take you down.” Who knew?

The Worst Thing That Can Happen May Not Really Be That Bad

The worst thing that can happen in WOW is that your character dies, usually by being killed by a non-player (automatic / game generated) character or beast that you’re supposedly out to kill. But really, all that happens is that you need to resurrect yourself, using magic or by running back to where your corpse is in the game. That’s it. For low-level characters, there isn’t even a penalty to be resurrected by the “graveyard spirit”. That’s it. You just keep playing. Often, you go back with greater knowledge of your enemy, and can then strike when he’s at his weakest, and win the challenge.

I Need To Check My Compass More Often

I’m an A-type personality, and a planner in my 3d life, and so I also am in-game. But, Azeroth is a large and complicated place. Sometimes I’m not where I think I am. Tracking my quests using a clear and simple system helps me stay on track for my goals. Since beginning to play, I’ve enlarged my white board in my office, and expanded my use of automatic self-organization tools and systems. It helps to be constantly checking my goals and my progress against them.

I’m not saying that playing online games is the solution to all things that ail, but so far, this experiment has been completely fascinating. I hope to continue this indefinitely, though, within certain rules, such as not playing before 8pm, and promising to never fling a frost spike at my husband if he challenges me to a duel.

(This article reprinted with permission from Joan Craven of InexpensiveKidsFun.com.)

One of my heroes is Joan Craven, of Craven Communications (JoanCraven.com) in Calgary, Canada. Joan is a Mom, Grandmum, Business Owner, Professional Speaker, and about a million other things to boot. She is what I hope I can learn to be like: happy, fulfilled, and most importantly, completely organized. (No kidding. You should take a look under her bathroom cupboards. Everything’s in neat little piles and rows.)

She’s written an article that I feel compelled to share with you as Writers. While she may not have had Writers in mind when she wrote this, it certainly applies to all of us obsessive writing types, who once an idea enters our brains, we cannot sleep/eat/do laundry until it has been purged by writing it out. Balance is not one of my fortes, to which Joan will attest. This simple article seems to set me right, and I’ve posted it on my office wall, to re-read it often.

Sometimes as we think back on our past work week we begin to beat ourselves up over what did not accomplish. That nasty little voice in our head says “why couldn’t you get it all done?” or “if you just used your time more wisely you would have been successful.”

Are you asking too much of yourself? Where is your time being spent?

The value of any work week is based on two things:

1. what we accomplished
2. what we have learned

The first question to ask yourself is “What goals did I accomplish and what ones need more time? Why didn’t specific goals get accomplished? Was I realistic in my goal setting? What have I learned?”

Once you have answered those questions plan out your next week, keeping in mind your professional and personal priorities. Devise a visual method that works for you.

Personally I use a “Things to do list” that has professional and personal goals for the day. When something isn’t accomplished one day I add it to the next day’s list. This has helped me in two ways:

1. I set realistic expectations for myself because I try to jot down estimated time each item will take. I include some stress-reduction type activities. For me that is chatting with a friend, going for a walk, baking, preparing a meal or visiting a library or bookstore.
2. As soon as I think of something to do, I jot it down so it doesn’t keep circling in my head. Once I see my list getting too long for one day I start a sheet for the next. Sometimes I have to juggles items from one day to the next.

Once I trained myself to check my email only twice a day and return phone calls once or twice a day, I had more time for other items. Two other strategies I consciously started were:

1. To turn off my computer at 6 p.m. each night.
2. To only watch 1 hour of TV a day.

All of a sudden I had much more time and I began to sleep better. When I travel to do workshops I now plan for the day-after to be a shortened day where I do ‘mindless tasks’ like filing or sorting or even just some professional reading because my energy is depleted from delivering the workshop. I try to set realistic expectations for myself.

By asking “what have I learned?” when I’m not successful in completing my goals make a huge difference to the way I talk to myself. Sometimes I fall off the wagon and am up completing a project until the wee hours of the next morning or I watch TV all night. Exceptions happen; they are just no longer my norm. What I consciously try to do is build high fences around personal time and strive to balance work and home.

What do you do to find balance in your life? What methods work for you?

Thanks, Saint Joan, for putting me back on track, once again.

Writer’s tools are extremely expensive, especially in terms of software. Here’s a great list of free open-source software designed just for writers.

First, lets define exactly what open source software really means. The term “open-source” comes from the idea that the source code of the software is revealed to the public, unlike Microdaft where everything is super-duper secret. (Or at least, so they think.) When the source code of a piece of software is available to anyone, it means that anyone in the software community can use it – within certain very loose guidelines – to create new software, create add-ons, refine the program, and so on. The one major caveat: they cannot take this free source code and sell it for a direct profit.

Does that mean it’s free? Well, sort of. There’s a strong code of ethics in the open-source community, and almost nobody abuses the grass-roots system that has grown up around this concept. Most people who contribute to open-source projects make their living by consulting, designing, supporting, and doing other things alongside the product of the open-source project, not the project itself.

However, this same code suggests that if there’s a donation button, and you’re happy with the software, then by all means, buy the programmer a virtual coffee. Realize that programmers of open-source software make only marginally more than your average freelance writer. Yep – a couple of bucks wouldn’t hurt either of you.

The website osalt.com has a massive database of open-source software for almost any purpose. (Be aware that they also offer downloads of commercial software – scroll past that to get to the free stuff.) But here are some of my personal recommendations for writers;

- OpenOffice, an alternative to Microserf Office. I have not used any MSO products for several years – this does more than MSO ever will, and looks almost identical. Virtually no learning curve, except for some exceptionally cool new stuff. Imagine this: free, does more, and fewer crashes. I once used this to layout an entire book for print, which I’ll talk about in a future blog post.

- WordPress, the blogging platform that this blog you’re reading is based upon. (This is different from WordPress.com, which is when you use it on a public server, which I do not generally endorse for writers.) I’m talking about WordPress.org, which offers the version that you can download and install on almost any webhost. A zany array of plugins and graphical themes are also available at WordPress.org/extend/.

- XMind, a mind-mapping application that can be used not only to distill your writing ideas, but also to map out characters, plot lines, and even help you figure out who the murderer is.

- PDF995, which although not really an open-source project, it is still free and very reliable. Even though you’ve read in other posts what a fan I am of Adobe products, I still use this for creating most of my PDF documents from typed documents, because it’s lighter and faster than the real thing. This version displays ads each time you use it, but you could just slap down the $10 and not see the ads.

- Celtx (pronounced “Kel-tix”) offers an alternative to the writer’s plague of crazy pieces of paper in every room of your house. Designed as a pre-production and planning tool for screenwriting and similar story-based art forms, it’s very useful for writers. Think of this as a digital binder, collecting your ideas and storyboards, not to mention the actual script, all in one place. Great collaboration tools for more than one contributor.

And for Writers Who Podcast…

- My beloved Audacity, the program that I use to record and edit almost all my audio podcasts. Easy to use, with cool built-in effects and a very forgiving undo button. Even the kids will love this.

- I recently discovered The Levelator, a dandy yet tiny application with big benefits for any podcaster. Smooths out levels and jumpy volume levels. This saves me hours of work.

If you can find a way to give back to the open-source community, please do so by donation or by promotion. It will keep writers in software for a long time coming.

This recipe for Chewy Oatmeal Cookies makes so many that I overflowed my little glass cookie jar. Is that a problem?

Blend first for about 3 minutes with an electric hand-mixer;
- 1/2 pound (1 cup) chilled margarine
- 1 cup firmly-packed brown sugar
- 1/2 cup white granulated sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1 teaspoon vanilla

Then make a well in center and blend in;
- 1 1/2 cups white flour
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon (I used2 teaspoons of the Poudre Douce again from Victorian Epicure)
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 3 cups rolled quick oats

(Optional: 1 cup raisins.)

Blend all together, and drop by lovin spoonfuls onto a parchment-lined cookie sheet. Bake for 10-12 minutes, and transfer to a cooling rack. Eat until the book is done.

Take this advice from William M. Akers, of YourScreenPlaySucks.com. Mr. Akers has been a professional writer for television, film and elsewhere for over 20 years, and he now teaches screenwriting at Vanderbilt University.

Here’s a link to an article by Mr. Akers, mainly about:

- how to get back into writing if you’ve taken the summer off,(“If you do not write every day, you are not a writer.”)

- not self-editing as you write (“If you write something and instantly hate it and erase it and feel worthless… hell, you’re never going to get anything done!”)

- how to avoid interruptions from your children (“They’re in therapy now, but I got my work done.”)

- what to do when you can’t think of anything good to write. (“Write crap.”)

He also reminded me of one of my favourite movie lines, from Finding Forrester: “JAMAL: Women will sleep with you if you write a book? FORRESTER: Women will sleep with you if you write a bad book.”

Enjoy!

I love this video from Ted.com starring Daniel Pink, titled “The Surprising Science of Motivation”. This has made me re-think the way I motivate myself to write a certain amount each day. In addition, his illustration of “The Candle Problem” has many applications, and I’m sure you’ll see yourself in at least part of this video.