5 Weird Things About Writing That Actually Work

All right – so while I head off to my day job why don’t all of you writer-types out there take a look at this?

Just English

by KAMAL SUCHARAN BURRI

 Being a filmmaker and writer, I’ve discovered some ridiculous but enlightening tips that increase the potential of a writer. I was totally astonished by the fact that they worked for me.

1. Use a notepad for drafting, rather than a notebook

I’ve just noticed this a few days back. I have the habit of writing scripts in notebooks and sometimes in separate pages. One day I went to the bookshop and accidentally purchased the “NOTEPAD”, the one where you flip off pages vertically. I started writing on it; to my bewilderment the writing flow of mine was awesome. It might be due to fewer distractions from the previous page as I obviously flip off to the new page every time. I don’t know why, but trust me, it works.

2. Never worry about editing, just go with the flow first

My writing professor used to say, “Never…

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I am a river to my readers – on promoting e-books

All right – so some of you folks out there might have heard of something called BLACK FRIDAY.

No, I am not talking about an Italian horror movie.

I am – of course – talking about the Friday before the American Thanksgiving.

We Canadians, of course, have already celebrated Thanksgiving last month. I mean, who wants to wait for turkey dinner anyway?

Well – as everybody and their dog’s litter of pups knows, Black Friday is a celebration of mass consumer consumption.  Folks are supposed to run wild, waving their wallets in the air and stampeding enmasse into their closest shopping malls.

Cars, books, television sets – you name it. Everything is suddenly available.

You can hear the hucksters and whiskey drummers beating on their tom-tom drums of greed and chanting hoarsely, “Sale! Sale! Sale!”

It sounds terrible, doesn’t it?

Well, pass me those tom-tom drums, would you?

I am taking part in two – (count them) – Black Friday and Cyber Monday promotions this weekend to help promote my grab-this-once-and-run-with-it release of BIG HAIRY DEAL – my full length novel of Bigfoot action.

Just click this picture and it will whisk you directly to the Amazon.com listing where you can grab a full-length novel for FREE!

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Now – some of you writer-types out there might want to know just what all I have done to promote this e-book.

For starters I set it to a price of $2.99 and then marked it down to a measly 99 cents for all October.

Now – for the first and possibly ONLY time I am giving this book away, all weekend long.

Yeah, I realize I already said that but that’s the thing about a tom-tom drum, now isn’t it? That beat has got to repeat.

I have tried to keep a very tight and low budget on this promotion – however I did pick up a couple of Fiverr promotions through bknights.

Let me tell you a little about bknights. This Fiverr company is absolutely GREAT for freebie promotions. Five dollars for a one-day freebie usually nets me an average of 500 giveaways. It hasn’t always worked as well on my 99 cent releases – but for freebies bknights cannot be beaten.

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I am also taking part in a weekend long group promotion with over thirty-five authors entitled the MKSP Black Friday / Cyber Monday Book Bash.

I know.

That’s a catchy title, isn’t it?

🙂

All kidding aside this is a great event for any Kindle readers to follow along with. There will be games and contests and giveaways and gift certificates all weekend long.

Just click here and sign up over at their Facebook page and follow along all weekend long.

Let me tell you writer-types, if you are trying to build up a little low cost promotion for one of your e-book releases then working with a group of dedicated writer-types is a great way to go. They’re going to be running all over the cyber-country banging on cyber-doors and fingering cyber-door-bells just as hard as they can.

Think of it as pebbles in a wishing pond.

You throw one, and you make it a bit of a ripple.

You throw a handful of pebbles and you make a lot of ripples.

You get yourself a whole posse of pebble-chucking writer-types and we are talking about a perfect storm of e-book promotion.

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Finally, I have hooked up at the last minute with a group of seven writers from kboards – (and if you aren’t following the kboards message board, well you really ought to turn in your I-write-for-kindle badge) for a similar smaller scale promotion.

This is always possible.

It doesn’t have to be something that you throw a lot of money at.

Offering free e-readers and new cars and Amazon shopping sprees are all well and good – but sometimes if you have only a short bit of time to work with you can just hook-up with a half-dozen of your writer-type buddies and share your blogs and mutually tweet and get the word out there for each other’s books.

And – for you UK readers Just click this picture and it will whisk you directly to the Amazon.co.uk listing where you can grab a full-length novel for FREE!

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I’ve got at least one other freebie this weekend that I will be announcing on this blog – and I want to apologize in advance to all of those Twitter-types and Facebook-followers of mine who are going to get tired of seeing my face pop up on their screen begging folks to buy my books – but I really want to get the word out about this promotion.

Why?

Well – aside from the usual reasons – I want to give EVERYONE a chance to grab this e-book free – because come the New Year I will be releasing BIG HAIRY DEAL and BIGFOOT TRACKS through Kobo – which means that BOTH of these e-books will no longer be available through the Kindle Unlimited program – which means that this will be your first and last chance, Kindle readers, to grab this e-book for free.

Why?

BECAUSE I AM A RIVER TO MY READERS!

yours in storytelling,

Steve Vernon

Physician, explain thyself: science English vs lay English

A lot of times I’ll hear a doctor speaking and I will wonder to myself just what the heck that fellow is saying. And I have watched a LOT of House episodes.

My wife went back to college and is now working in a hospital and I hear an awful lot of medical jargon getting tossed around.

So I get a lot of what this blogger is talking about.

SO – how many of you writer-types out there have characters in medical professions?

Stroppy Editor

Doctors and scientists may be brilliant in their fields but some may not be great at communicating their knowledge to the rest of us. This is obviously important when doctors are explaining things to their patients, as it is when research scientists are seeking to engage the public with their work. To succeed, the experts need to tailor their language to a lay audience.

There’s a lot of good advice you can get on how to tell engaging stories about science, and on how to apply principles of clarity and coherence to scientific prose. But, like Vincent Vega in Pulp Fiction, what strikes me most is the little differences between lay English and the English of biomedical science.

I’m going to talk you through a few of the things that I notice again and again as a copyeditor. Biomedical science is my patch, but some of these points…

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