Latest Writing News June 2016

Here is the latest list of writing news from around the web.

Amazon is suing people who buy fake reviews
Over the course of the last two years Amazon has been on a rampage, suing companies that sell fake reviews. They have brought court cases against dozens of companies that target authors to professional reviews written for their e-books.
http://goodereader.com/blog/e-book-news/amazon-is-suing-people-who-buy-fake-reviews

How to Procrastinate Less & Write More

Sometimes, it seems hard to sit down and write.

Procrastination overwhelms you.

But here is a really interesting thing.

There really is no such thing as procrastination.

The problem that I have on days when I just find it hard to sit down and write, is just that.

It’s simply getting started that’s the problem, and not the actual writing itself.

I even sometimes sit down and then can’t think of what to do.

So this is how I get over this problem in just 3 simple steps.

How to Be an Organised Writer

I've said it before and I'll say it yet again.

One of the hardest things I find about being a writer is having the self discipline to sit down  and work.

But it's not just about being disciplined enough to write.

I also need to be organised.

Why?

Because otherwise I waste time doing the same things over and over or spend hours looking for something because I cannot find which folder (digital or physical) that I filed it in.

This is why I have to have a place for everything and keep everything in it's place whether it's in my physical office or my virtual one on my computer.  I need to have a system of saving and updating things so that I don't waste time having to do things over from scratch or searching for a document.

I also need to have a way to do things. This means having a system for the way I write and publish articles and books.

For instance, for my blog posts I need to scale my images to size. To do this I know I need to change the width to 250 px and allow the image to scale proportionately to the correct height. I do this for every image that is in the top corner of a blog posts like this one. That way I know exactly what I have to do once I've downloaded a suitable image. I also go to the same website, FreeDigitalPhotos.net to get all my images. That saves me having to look at more than one site.

It's the same with any job you do, whether it's a paid job, a work-from-home job and even doing chores around the house.

I have certain cleaning jobs I do at home on certain days. That way I just automatically do them without thinking about it and over the course of each week everything gets cleaned.

And it's the same if you start a new job. You learn how they handle everything from the morning mail, to public displays, advertising, filing systems, databases and more.

Companies have systems in place to speed up the working day.

Writers have systems in place to speed up their writing day.

I have systems that I use for the way I write articles. I have another one for how I write books.

If I didn't, every time I wanted to write something I'd have to sit and think of where to start, what needs doing and what order to do it in.

But because of my writing systems I know exactly what I need to do first and what to do next.

That way I simply work my systems and the writing gets done.

It's kind of like going to the gym or going on a diet. Once you know what you have to do, you just do it and you get fit or the weight drops off. No need for further thinking and planning. Just do what you gotta do and get on with it.

Likewise, I just stick to my tried and trusted writing systems and that's how I manage to work as a writer and earn all my income from my writing.

Being an organised writer is just as important as being a writer.

Without my filing systems and simple writing systems, I wouldn't get much done in a day.

Finding Time to Write

Many people I know say that they find it really hard to find time to do their writing.

They say that between working, looking after their family and doing household chores, there is just no time left in the day for writing.

That's because there is no such thing as "finding" time. Saying that you'll find time to do something is the same as saying you'll do it later.  Later doesn't exist. There is no such time as "later" and you can't "find" time.

Instead you have to allocate time to write. And preferably allocate the same time every day so that you can build up a really good daily writing habit AND it will be easier to actually sit down and write if you have dedicated time to it on a consistent basis.

But how can you decide which hours of the day to dedicate to writing if you think your daily schedule is already full?

Here are three ways that really work. Try them all.

1. Do Less of What Doesn't Matter
We all have time that we spend doing things that really don't matter because they are not helping us move towards our life goals. These may be things like watching TV, gossiping, unnecessary shopping, social media, emails, web surfing, and more. If it's not moving you forward in your life to where you want to be then you don't need it.

2. Use Otherwise Wasted Time
There are plenty of opportunities to make use of what would be wasted time in a day. It could be a train/bus journey to work, lunch break, waiting for kids after school, or perhaps you could get up an hour earlier to write. When J K Rowling wrote her first Harry Potter novel, she did it while her baby daughter slept for 2 hours in the afternoon. Her second novel she wrote during her lunch breaks at work.

3. Keep an Accountability Diary
If you really want to know where your time goes keep a diary of what you do all day long. This can be a complete revelation into how you spend your time. It can also help you to stop wasting time when you have to write down how much time you spend doing everything. An accountability diary really helps to keep you responsible for every precious moment of the day.

We all have time for doing what is important. Yet we waste it on unimportant things, then wonder where all our time went.

But now is the time to turn things around and you have 3 simple ways to help you find more time to write.

What You Need to Do If You Want to Earn Money From Writing

The past couple of weeks has been hectic for me. I was initially busy sorting out all the issues that went along with selling my old website for writers (very long, complicated and drawn out). My new website for writers is at http://ruthiswriting.com (which I only just managed to get online today, and it's still far from being completely ready).

Then just when I thought I was safe to get back to writing, I had a close family member get really sick and she was in hospital for a week. This meant spending time driving to the hospital and back every day and staying most of the day, then getting home and rushing around doing everything that still needed to be done (dog walking, washing, cooking, etc) before catching little sleep and rushing back to the hospital again.

Thankfully it's now all over and she's home again and things are getting back to normal again.

But one thing that I did keep doing was checking my emails every couple of days or so and one thing kept occurring.

Someone was going crazy buying all my writing ebooks and emailing me about how it's not working for them.

Well...it won't work unless they work it.

What I mean by that is that if you want to earn money from your writing, you have to actually do the writing. And plenty of it. Not buy several writing ebooks and courses over a two week period and then complain that they're not working and you're not earning any money.

If you want to be a professional writer AND earn all your income from it, then you have to put in the time and effort to write.

It's easy to think that writing isn't working (and many people think that about me because they see me sitting at home every day and so don't consider it to be 'proper' work).

And it's not a shortcut to being rich either.

But even though it's work, it's somewhat enjoyable work. I say "somewhat" because sometimes when I have a deadline I'm working to, it gets hard to sit and write on days when I simply just don't feel like it.

I guess it's the same as being a doctor in that regard (and boy have I seen a lot of those recently). By that I mean that although people say they want to be a doctor and that it's their dream job, that doesn't mean it's easy for them to do. They still have to work hard and sometimes work long hours. But they'd still rather be doing that for a living than anything else.

And it's the same with writing. You might not always feel like doing it, but it has to be done.

On the plus side, the income is passive so once you've established yourself enough, even when you're not working for a week or two, the income is still there. For instance, over the past couple of weeks, even though I didn't put finger to keyboard that whole time (except to check my emails and respond to my ranting customer), I still managed to sell quite a few ebooks and I received a couple of payments from Amazon for my affiliate money and my book sales.

But writing income doesn't last (or I should say doesn't stay as high) if I don't eventually get back to work and start writing again.

That's because NO BUSINESS can survive without work.

But at least being a writer affords me the opportunity to be self employed and still earn income when I take time off from my job.

The good thing though, is that I'm now more than ready to apply my backside to my chair and get back to writing again, now that I've been away from it so long and life has gotten back to normal.

And anyone who wants to know what the "secret" is to becoming a successful and well-paid writer, it's writing. It's sitting down every day and working.

Buying ebooks and courses won't work unless you follow them and there's no way my ranting customer had time to work through them all in such a short time, especially considering one of the things they bought was The 12 Month Writing Challenge. (I think they didn't understand the words '12 months' and perhaps thought it said '12 minutes').

So if you feel that you've not been doing enough writing recently, then like me you need to sit down and write more.

And that's what I'm going to do right now.

How about you?

How to Write a Novel: Idea to Manuscript in Five Simple Steps

If you want to earn money from writing fiction then time really is money because the more you write, the more books you can sell.

I’ve been writing a lot of fiction lately and the biggest projects are the book-length manuscripts.

These can be anything from 20,000 words to 85,000 and more.

And with so much writing to do I find it impossible to start with a blank page.

Years ago I read about Ranger Ingerman’s ‘Snow Flake’ method for writing a novel and it really is an ingenious and easy-to-do idea.

You can read more about it at http://advancedfictionwriting.com/articles/snowflake-method/. 

The snowflake method of writing a novel includes knowing your characters extensively before you begin writing your manuscript and also constructing a complete story outline.

So here I’ve broken it down into a simple, but thorough, five step process that really does help you to go from idea to full manuscript:

1. Write one sentence to describe your story idea. It should be just a few words like a movie description in a TV guide, perhaps something like, “Aliens invade earth.”
2. Expand your idea into a paragraph which must contain a beginning, an end and at least three plot crisis points in between (5 sentences). The story starts with the main characters moving from having a goal to reaching it and at least three things, or people, that try and stop them. The ending must contain some kind of change in the main character/s life/lives - either physical or emotional.
3. Expand each sentence into a paragraph so that you end up with a one-page summary.
4. Expand each paragraph into a one-page description of scenes and things that happen in them. Break each scene into chapters that all have a cliff-hanger ending.
5. Now use this outline to write your novel.

Once you start writing your idea and expanding it into a full outline, it quickly becomes easier to think of new plot ideas and conflicts to add.

It really does help to get your creative writing juices flowing.