Welcome to the celebration of thirteen random things. Click below to read…
Wiley Wednesday – Writing Quantity Over Quality
As the month of October quickly slips along, I’m left to contemplate participation in NaNoWriMo. That is shorthand for November’s National Novel Writing Month. It’s actually a worldwide affair during which writers of every conceivable genre scramble to put out 50,000 words toward one story in thirty days.
This is no minor feat, demanding an average of over 1,600 words every day. Last year I count myself blessed to have succeeded. The resulting manuscript still needs work, as I set it aside in favor of other projects and then life in general. Still, I did it!
Dogged persistence isn’t the only requirement. A big part of the process involves turning off the inner Critic. That alone is no easy task. Another is ignoring the desire many of us have to edit what is on the page instead of continuing to write. Edit in January or February after the pressure is off and you’ve stepped away from the project for a time.
Finishing fifty thousand words in thirty days requires each author to focus on simply spooling out the story rather than worrying over the quality. This is key to completing a tale under any conditions, let alone increasing the rate of production.
So, write instead of editing. Write despite any murmurings of an inner critic. Just sit down and write.
Have I decided to participate in NaNoWriMo this year? I honestly can’t say. First, I need to figure out what to write! It’s great fun, though, and provides an opportunity to meet writers online and in person at various events or through the website.
If interested, you should definitely check it out. Instructions for participation are simple, and then you put fingers to the keyboard and get busy. It’s that simple, if not exactly easy.
Write, right?!
Thursday Thirteen
Here we are again toward the end of the week. Click below to check out our contribution to this weekly event.
Scrabbling for Life
Having become recently hooked on playing Scrabble via an android mobile device, I realized that there are many similarities between the game and life.
To find success and happiness folks need a balance of luck and skill. You need to pay attention and follow the rules. If you find yourself unhappy with your lot, you can gamble in making a change much like throwing away letters from your options in the game. The trick is that one needs to be willing to end up in a worse situation.
But enough about life in general. This blog is about creative living. And that, blessedly, has no rules outside of still paying attention and definitely opening your mind.
As for the game, I like to play Scrabble because I love words. Writing is understandably my favorite creative outlet. Fortunately, writing is very different from the game. There is no limit on the number of words or letters available to play. The trick is about putting the letters down more than having either luck or skill.
Much can be said for other forms of creativity. I hope you’ll find yours and go have some fun. You might very well change your life for the better while you’re at it.
Thursday Thirteen
Join in today’s meme with a read and a comment!
Wiley Wednesday—Custom Facebook Fan Pages
One thing I always admire about the bigger-name authors is their beautiful custom designs–Twitter backgrounds, websites, Facebook pages…things I didn’t think the averaged e-published author could afford.
I was SO wrong.
Let me tell you about the company ShortStack. They’re new, hip, and with it. The FREE version of the program would allow you endless ways to customize your Facebook fan page. And it’s fairly simple to use–just click and drag the elements you want added to a new tab (y’know those things along the left column under your picture? Those are the tab elements) and then connect your account to Facebook. POOF! You have a new tab! (For an example, look at Skylar Kade’s page–thought it’s on the edge of NSFW)
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This is what the tab composer in ShortStack looks like. While I’m sure you’ll enjoy exploring on your own, I’d like to highlight ten elements of the program that you should know.
1. Your composition tabs: design (where you put the elements together), CSS (where, if you know this coding language, you can make your tabs look even more slick), and PUBLISH, where you apply the Facebook tab you’ve just created to your Facebook page. The image below shows the PUBLISH tab, and there are two very important things to change before you officially publish your page. First, change your tab name to something descriptive, like “Welcome”
or “Contest”, otherwise it will default to “Tab 1”. Second, if you want this to be the first thing that your visitor sees, you should change it to the “Default landing tab”.
2. Tab name: like I mentioned above in the Publish tab, also change the name here to match.
3. Add widgets: These are the different elements you can add to your page.
4. Basic tools: You can add elements for pictures, slideshows, text, links, and a shopping cart, though I primarily stick to the pictures and text (NOTE: there is also a text element at the bottom of the widget column; this is for HTML text. The top text element is more like a word processor that allows you to choose font, color, style, etc)
5. Promotions: from left to right, the widgets are Promotion, Voting, and Entry Count. Note that if you are running a promotion there’s extra work involved because you have to create the promotion information and entry form–but it’s well-worth it. What I prefer to do is create two tabs–a “Welcome” tab with basic information, and a link to my “Contest” tab. (NOTE: while you can’t create two tabs at a time, the free version of Short Stack does allow you multiple tabs)
6. MailChimp widget: Have a newsletter or thinking about sending one out? You can add a MailChimp sign-up widget to your Facebook tab. I love MailChimp as much as I love ShortStack–and it’s equally free.
7. Integrations: YouTube videos (for those book trailers), twitter streams, and RSS feeds–all can be added to your tab. To keep things from being crowded, consider creating an additional tab for your RSS and twitter feeds.
8. Forms and Promos: This is where you’ll be directed if you add the promotion widget (#5)
9. Edit Widgets: This is where you drop any element you want added to your tab. To rearrange their order, grab the top left corner and move the element. The pencil allows you to edit the widget–definitely explore all the options available to you there. The teal button at the bottom, “show titles and borders” is something I usually unclick. Otherwise, each widget will be boxed and titled on your Facebook page.
10. Live Preview: This is what your page will look like to a visitor. Note the three options: A key (what the page administrator would see), A thumbs up (what a fan would see) and a red-lined thumbs up (what a non-fan would see). If you look back to #9, each widget has these similar images below them so you can determine who sees what. This is useful for what is called “fan-gating,” where you show exclusive content only to your fans. So, for example, you could have a promotion widget that is set to fan-only (click the thumbs up at the bottom of the widget box) and a visitor would have to “like” your page before seeing the contest information. (NOTE: in place of the key, the Edit Widgets area uses two people to represent what EVERY visitor sees)
11. Status: This will show you whether your tab is Unpublished or Published.
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I know this is sounds complicated, but play around with it–if there’s something you don’t like, you can always edit it.
Feel free to direct any questions at me (@caseylynnmms) or at Jim from Short Stack (@shortstacklab)–they’re really good about helping their customers.
Happy Fan Paging!
Thursday Thirteen
Darla’s Diversion
September Takeoff
Rose tinted dawn shines
Flames glow, riots of color
Hot air balloons soar
Thursday Thirteen
It’s Thursday again, when we create lists of thirteen things. Click below to read:
Wiley Wednesday
As a music lover, I’ve long noted a preference for male vocals. This fact became obvious when I tried listing female singers in my collection for a Thursday Thirteen. That effort reminded me of a very different voice – from the written word. Music is about the sound first and foremost, the story and emotion it carries like icing on the cake.
The written word, for me, is different in that I don’t care about the voice telling the story. That doesn’t appear to be a popular notion these days but I stand by it. Tell your story however you will, from whatever POV, just give me believable characters in an interesting tale.
Opining about this during a personal dry writing spell, I guess my goal is partly to hush my own inner critic. I hope I’ve done the same for you and we’ll all get to enjoy more story. Happy writing!