Five Top Twitter Tips For Writers

I'm relatively new to the world of Twitter. I held out for a long time because I thought that 140 characters was a ridiculously small amount of space to say anything worthwhile in. But since activating my profile a couple of months ago it has become a staple in my tabs bar, and a place for much procrastination.

But how can you get the most out of your twitter account? The micro-blogging site can be a really effective tool at any stage of your writing journey, but only if you you it correctly. That's where these ten tips come in.

1) Have a small focus: Twitter is at its best when it's used to track a particular industry. If you are looking to become a professional writer, then you should primarily follow other writers, publishers, agents, and aspiring authors. If your best friend is on twitter, then yes you can follow her too. But if you follow widely and indiscriminately, then the tweets in your feed will be mostly useless to you.

2) Follow people who give value: This links in with the first point, but there are many people who tweet useful links for different professions. Elizabeth Spann Craig is a published author who tweets links to useful advice from people at all stages of the writing cycle. I've found her links (and her own posts) invaluable.You can find her at @elizabethscraig.

3) Go for quality, not quantity: It's true that the more people that you follow, the more people who are likely to follow you. While you should bear this in mind, following people just to up your own follower count is counter-productive. First of all, as I said before, if you don't enjoy the person's tweets then you get no value from the follow. Also, if a person is only following you because they want you to follow them then they won't be interested in the content of your posts. This will be a particular problem if you intend to tweet links to your blog, or build a buzz about a book release. It's better to build meaningful relationships, rather than shallow connections.

4) Keep self-promotion to a minimum. Yes, twitter is a good vehicle for promoting your book/blog/published short story, but keep it polite. There's a difference between telling someone at a party that you have a book coming out, and jamming the title into every topic of conversation, from the price of baked beans to Kim Kardashian's wedding. Have some news that you think would interest your followers? Tweet with a link, no more than twice in one day. And that second time is only to account for different time zones.

5) Have fun: Twitter is a fun medium. You get to find out news as it's happening through a cascade, often before the main news sites and channels have released it. You get to read pithy takes on current events, find out random facts and meet some very entertaining people. Who doesn't want to follow a person who's having fun? Enjoy yourself and the rest will take care of itself.

Oh, as writers we hear a lot about developing a platform, but sometimes it can be difficult to do. Luckily, Rachael Harrie is holding her third Writer's Platform Building Campaign. It's a great chance to meet new writers, and you can sign up until August 31st. Head over here now to take part.

Paper Hangover, Beer Festival and Lucille Austero

I've had a cold hovering for the last ten days and it hit yesterday with a vengeance. Today it's even worse, and I look disturbingly like Rudolph the red nosed reindeer crossed with a laboratory mouse i.e., all red nose and watery eyes.

Still, tonight I have to go out because it's beer festival time. Remember I was writing part of the programme for a beer festival a few weeks ago? Well it's on tonight, and as the husband and I are beer buffs, and as we both wrote in the programme, we're heading along. I love offbeat, imported beers so this promises to be fun times.

Anyone read about the world markets? It's vertigo-inducingly scary. In a Lucille Austero way...

Got to love Arrested Development.

 Every week Paper Hangover gives a blog prompt for the YA writing community, and this week they want to know the five apps that you use most for writing or recreation. So here are mine:

1. Focus Booster : This is a great app for reducing procrastination. It is a little window that changes colour as the time you set to complete a certain task runs out. It makes you more concious of your time, and therefore more productive.

2. Write Or Die : This menacingly named app lets you write in a window, which turns pink when you've gone too long without typing. When it reaches dark red it plays a punishment sound, such as a baby crying or Hanson's Mmmbop. This app forces you to keep writing, thereby increasing the number of words you can churn out in a set amount of time. Great app, but for first drafts only.

3. Tweetdeck : This is a great app. I use it for scheduling tweets about my blog, which is handy because most of my readers live in different time zones to me.

4. Kindle for PC : I haven't yet succumbed to the lure of the Kindle, but this app means I can read self-published books by my writer friends on my computer.

5. Angry Birds : I haven;t yet succumbed to the lure of the smartphone, but I play this regularly on my husband's Samsung Galaxy. Seriously glad I don't have it to hand, as it would be another large thief of time.

What about you? Any useful apps that you couldn't live without? Hope you all have a great weekend!

Writing For Other People

This is a balance, because if you're going to write to be traditionally published then you have to look at the market. A publishing company is never going to take on your book if they don't think that they can sell it.Occasionally books get published that defy the trends, but this is more the exception than the rule. 

Also, if you write in a certain genre you have to be aware of the genre conventions. There is a reason why a person decides to go into a bookshop and go to a certain section. The conventions are not hard, fast rules, but you have to give the reader a certain framework.

Ok, so we've gotten that out of the way. One of the biggest mistake that a rookie writer can make is to write with other people in mind. This can take several forms, but there are two particularly bad forms.

#1: Letting other people's opinions interfere with the plot. When you think properly about writing a book, you realise that if you publish it everyone that you know is a potential reader. Your mother in law, that neighbour down the road who hates your guts, your co-workers.You can't pick certain people and tell them that they can't read it. So a writer starts to think, I better tone down that sex scene, they may think that I'm some sort of nymphomaniac or My character can't talk about how much she dislikes her sister in law, in case my sister in law thinks that I'm saying that I dislike her. Some people probably will think that facets of your character are based on yourself, but you just have to remind them that it is fiction. You have to be true to your characters, and your plot. As long as you're not writing thinly veiled autobiography, you should be fine.

2: Clarifying that your character's opinions are not your own in the main body of the text. If you write about a character that is a racist, people are not going to automatically assume that you are in fact racist. You don't need to do this: " 'Go back to where you came from,' David sneered. Obviously, racism is wrong but David was so full of rage at life that he didn't care about other people and the fact that we are all humans regardless of race."

Your characters are separate from you, and an intelligent reader is well able to separate the attitudes of a character, from that of the author. The above is unnecessary and takes away from the scene itself.

*Do you find it hard to write for yourself and not other people?*

*I'm on holiday, but I'll respond to any comments when I get back*

Friday Fives: Creative Inspiration

Every week, the lovely people over at Paper Hangover give a blog prompt to help those of us who, very occasionally, run out of ideas for posts. This week they want to know: What are the five things that get your creativity juices flowing? Because Paper Hangover is predominantly YA, I'll be listing things that help me write YA urban fantasy, rather than my other genre, women's contemporary fiction.

1. Music: When I get stuck in a scene, I find playing music can jog my brain. Maybe it's because music appeals on an emotional level? 

2. Rain: I find that I get inspired by the rain, and I find it easier to get write on cold, damp days. Good thing I live in Ireland then.

3: Reading history and mythology: I find that my YA fiction depends more on my university education than my adult fiction does. The political situation in Ravensborough is inspired by historical research, and my steampunk WIP is based in an alternative Victorian era, a period I've specialised in. So non-fiction comes into play.

4: Eavesdropping: It's amazing how many ideas you can pick up from listening to people talk in public. Not that I would lift an idea completely, but if gives you a starting point. Then you ask 'what if...' and a plot strand begins to take shape.

5: Life: This sounds like a bit of a cop out, but it really isn't. The more things you do, people you meet, and places you see, the more your imagination grows. Like any living thing, creativity needs fuel.

What about you guys? What inspires you?

In which Christine Discovers The Secret To Success...

First of all, I'm really excited because my blog has now had over a thousand page views! Which is great because, I love blogging. In fact, it may have overtaken perusing internet for as my number one form of procrastination. I really enjoy reading other people's blogs, because I'm inherently nosy. I've only been writing

here since March 23, but I've met so many great people in the blogosphere.

But anyway, the secret of success. As I've mentioned before I have fibromyalgia, which is basically a disorder of the central nervous system that affects how the body interprets and deals with pain. Right now I'm going through a rough time, but I won't bore anyone with the details here. Right now, I can't sleep, which is a pain, but it means I get all my journalism work done in the small hours of the morning, leaving the rest of the day for fiction work. It's amazing how productive insomnia makes you. Of course, this is a ll short lived and pretty soon I'm going to look like an extra from Dawn of the Dead, but right now it's working for me.



The second secret of success, I take no credit for. Ever wished that the whole story-telling business was less subjective and unwieldy? Well, then rejoice, for Computer Sherpa  has drawn up a Periodic Table of Storytelling. Cool, eh? It's even available in a print out format for those of us who like to prettify our workspaces. Seriously, you should check it out. You can't see it here, because the image is too small, but some of the 'element' listings are really funny. You can find it here.

Off to edit and to try in vain to increase my BuNoWriMo word count. If anyone else has any new 'secrets of success,'feel free to share them in the comment section :)

The Five Excuses You Have To Give Up To Be a Better Writer

The nice people over at Paper Hangover give a blog prompt every Friday. It's really cool, because it gives you a question to think about and you also get to read what other people think about a topic. It's seriously worth checking out.

Today's prompt is about excuses. What are the five excuses that you needed to let go of in order to be a better writer?

1) I'm too busy to write: This is a common excuse. We all have other commitments such as work, school, and family. But the truth is that you have to make time to write. Everyone can clear space in their schedule, even if it's just fifteen minutes a day, to commit to writing.

2) I'm not good enough: This a common thought that runs through a writer's head, and I'm not sure that it ever really goes away completely. It is an excuse though, because convincing yourself that you aren't good enough gives you an excuse not to try.

3) It's too hard: Writing a novel is hard, but that's not an excuse not to give it a try. And the more you write, the easier it becomes.

4) You need to wait for the muse to strike before you start writing your novel: If you have had an idea for a story, then the muse has already struck. You need to work at the rest. Though the more often you sit down at your computer and tap out words, the more often she'll stop by to visit. She's a fickle mistress, though. Don't rely on her too much.

5) I'll start writing...tomorrow: Much like the diet that you promise you'll start tomorrow, tomorrow rarely comes. Just start right now.

What excuses do you use to put off writing? Or are you all more virtuous than me?

This above all, to thine own self be true

I've wanted to be a writer ever since I can remember. I was the oddball only child of two reading addicts, and my parents would rather read than do just about anything else. This is something I inherited from them, and I started reading before I went to play school. For as long as I can remember I have had a book on the go constantly. I read fast and if I haven't got at least another two books lined up for after I finish my current one then I start to get panicky. 

Since I loved books so much, I knew I wanted to be a writer from a young age. I was good at creative writing in school, so it seemed like a logical extension of my book addiction. My grandad tried to put me off by telling me that I'd never make any money as a writer so I should do something else. But I still wasn't deterred.

I wrote short stories and poetry, and some of them did well in competitions. But then there was my novel. I tried to write a novel so many times, but always fell at the first hurdle. Or the first chapter.

There were three main reasons why I didn't get very far. One was that I just didn't have the discipline yet. I expected to write a novel from start to finish, read over it a couple of times and submit it. If only it were that simple. Second of all, I couldn't turn off my inner editor. I would pour over the paragraphs that I'd written sighing internally. Now I write without pause for the first draft, then start to edit. And because I've had time to cool off I tend to find that the prose isn't as bad as I feared at the time.

But the big block to me writing my first novel, was that I was writing for other people. I love literary fiction, and I've read reams of it. Literary fiction is widely regarded as having more merit than popular or commercial fiction. I was writing a literary novel to impress other people, when every competition I'd won was for my more popular chatty style of writing. I was writing the book I wanted other people to think I'd written, rather than the book I wanted to write. Once I gave myself permission to be myself, the writing process became a lot easier and a lot more fun.

If you're going to finish your novel and write a book that other people will enjoy, you have to be true to yourself. That is the single most important piece of advice out there. And then maybe editors will liek ur submishuns.

P.S. I got a Versatile Blogger award from Michelle. How cool is that? Thanks Michelle :)

Top Five Pieces of Advice for Aspiring Writers

Every week the nice peeps over at Paper Hangover give a blogging prompt. Today they've asked people to write about the top five pieces of advice that they have gotten as an aspiring writer.

1: You need to write regularly. Very regularly. All the reasons that you come up with to explain why you haven't written your book yet? They're excuses. You have to find time to write.

2: The first draft sucks. But that's ok, because the real part of writing is in the editing. That's when you convert your basic line drawing into a three dimensional work of art.

3: Don't try to write like anyone else. Don't write in a genre just because it's commercially viable or highly regarded. Write the book you want to write in your own voice. It might take a while to find your voice, but its worth taking time to hone. A writer's unique style is the reason why a reader buys more than one of their books.

4: Get someone else to read your book. Get as much constructive criticism as possible. At first it's difficult to take, writing is such a personal thing, but it gets easier with time. Also, when people have taken time out of their busy lives to read your material, remember to show your gratitude. Even if you don't like what they say.

5: Unless you are to doing this as a pure hobby, remember that writing is a business. When traditional publishers take you on they are taking a financial risk. They pay an advance (if you're lucky!), editing costs, advertising costs and fund the print run and transporting of books. None of this includes admin. If you want to persuade a publisher to spend money on you, you need to show them that you are a professional and that you will take the process seriously. That means all submissions should be edited a gazillion times, your letter should sell your book yet still sound modest. It's a job interview in paper form.

They were my favourite ones anyway. Hope everyone has a great weekend! :)