Time for a Rant

I'm grouchy today. I'll be grouchy all week. I hate Daylight Savings Time. I'm so tired I posted this on my Wednesday blog instead of here just now. Grrrr.

This will be short because I'm so sloggy and foggy and boggy today. And I'm not alone, if you can trust the studies that have been done on this horrible imposition.

According to this article (http://www.cos-mag.com/Safety/Safety-Stories/losing-sleep-over-dst-can-lead-to-injury.html) done by Michigan State University, there are 5.7 per cent more workplace injuries and 67.6 per cent more workdays missed due to injuries on the first Monday after the time change.

More injuries reported here (http://www.myhealthnewsdaily.com/daylight-savings-time-may-affect-health-1259/) where a 1996 study published in the New England Journal of Medicine showed an 8 percent increase in motor vehicle accidents on the Monday following the time change. 

And that's not all! You can die from DST! The same article cites a Swedish study done in 2008 that showed an increase of about 5 percent in heart attacks on the three weekdays following the spring time shift.

So, injury and death. Wonderful. Why are we doing this again?

Oh yes, let me wish you Happy PI Day. Maybe pie will make it better.

[[grumpy toad photo by Matt Reinbold used under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license

apple pie photo by Sage Ross used under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license]]

Seeing stars

I was thrilled when a reader recently gave one of my publications a five-star review on Amazon. (Most of my reviews have been on Smashwords, so just getting one on Amazon was exciting.) Then I read that some people don't think very highly of them! In fact, I read that one reader discounts all five-star reviews, assuming that they come from friends or family. That reader also discounts all the one-star reviews, and reads only the others, the moderately-starred two-, three-, and four-star reviews.

Do you tend to give out many five-star ones? I used to casually give top reviews to every book I rated on Amazon. After realizing that they are meaningless to some people, I've started giving four-star reviews instead. That's probably more realistic, after all. I suppose a five-star should only go to the best book you've read all year, or maybe in the last six months.

I like to do other authors favors. I know how hard they work and what an effort it is to get to the stage where you have a book to be reviewed. But if it's not a favor to give a five-star review, then I don't want to do it.

By the way, if I couldn't rate a book at least four stars, I wouldn't even think of reviewing it. What do you think? Do you take the five-star reviews seriously? Or not?

(I'm still thrilled with the five-star review I got, no matter what!)

(Painting: Starry Night Over the Rhone by Van Gogh)

Ghost Writing--Should You Become a Ghost?

As a kid, when I heard that something was "ghost" written, I figured that meant some sort of intelligent ectoplasmic being was carrying around a typewriter and creating stories. After all, one of my favorite writers was Carolyn Keene who wrote the Nancy Drew mysteries. When I discovered the Keene wasn't a real person, but a name used by a ghost writer, that made total sense to me. No wonder she could write such great spooky mysteries. Carolyn was nothing more than a ghost! She would know all about being spooky.

Of course, I did eventually come to the understanding that a ghost writer is just someone who writes a novel, article or blog, but doesn't get author credit. Oh no. In fact, they get something better.

They get paid.

Yes, they make money on their writing. Actual money!

It wasn't too long ago that I would read the term ghost writer and think, "Now why would anyone want to do that? Why would you put in all your time and hard work on something that isn't yours? What if it becomes a best seller?" Well, my circumstances have changed, and I now see the allure, the potential of ghost writing. With your own novel, once it's edited, you are faced with querying, and hopefully, marketing it. Even if you sell it to someone, there is still lots of work to be done that cuts into your actual writing time, not to mention your budget. Now for some writers, this isn't a big deal. But for those of us already living on a shoe string budget and in need of money to help promote their book, ghost writing can be a great source of income.

I'm not saying it's easy. You don't get credit for what you've written. Then again, you don't have to query it, market it, or deal with any kind of rejection either. You get paid and that can pad your own marketing bank account.

Ghost writing a full length novel can take away a lot of your time and if you are working a full time job already, that may not be the way to go. Consider ghost writing blogs for people or short articles. It still takes time, but the turn around for these projects is much quicker.

This may not be a good fit for you. It certainly isn't for everyone, but if you are interested in exploring this option further, a good source for ghost writing jobs is Elance. Just be sure to charge what you are worth! Or simply Google "ghost writer" and you'll come up with all sorts of job postings.

 Happy hunting!

Conflicting over conflict

There are those who say a genre book needs tension on every page. I think I agree with that, mostly. I do have a critique partner who soundly rejects that idea. For literary fiction, I'll agree with her, but for mysteries, thrillers, romance, speculative fiction, I think you gotta have it. If not on every page, at least in every scene.

Once things get going, I don't mind a let up and some relaxation. Let the heroine have a nice dinner with the guy, let the sleuth relax in the tub with candles and bubbles for an evening, let the spy find comfort in a soft, warm bed with a soft, warm body.

But not for more than a page or so!

How to write conflict and tension? The most obvious is to put obstacles in the way of the protagonist's goals. But that's already built in with your plot, most probably. What other kinds of conflict will keep the reader reading?

Your characters can have inner conflicts based either on the situations they're facing, or relationships with other characters. Or even aspects of their own personalities they're unhappy with and want to change--bad habits, addictions, disastrous relationships.

I love it when two or three characters have conflicting goals and something has to give. I also appreciate a built-in ticking bomb. Not literally a bomb, of course, although it could be, but a situation that must resolved within a given time period. This is the ultimate tension as the characters race against the clock to save the heir, rescue the prince, find the device that will end the world as we know it, etc.

Tension can even build when nothing overt is happening. This has to be set up, though. The reader has to know that something is brewing in the background while things are going smoothly. She has to know that the Sunday driver is heading toward a washed out bridge, just beyond the sharp bend. Or that the elderly man walking the Yorkie is about to pass the meth lab house where the three pit bulls have figured out how to get out of the chain link fence.  Or that the delicious apple pie ala mode has probably been poisoned.

Weather can create conflict for you, too. Impending storms, tornado sightings, earthquakes, floods. I like to use weather for mood, but also, occasionally, to put the characters into just a little more peril than they're already in.

What other good types of conflict have you read lately? Or maybe you've written them? 

pictured:
“Picture of Captain Awata, Who Fights Furiously with His Celebrated Sword in the Assault on Magongcheng in the Pescadores” 1895

This photographic image was published before December 31st 1956, or photographed before 1946 and not published for 10 years thereafter, under jurisdiction of the Government of Japan. Thus this photographic image is considered to be public domain according to article 23 of old copyright law of Japan and article 2 of supplemental provision of copyright law of Japan.

Keywords: Why are they important?

I've taken on a freelance project in order to pad my dwindling writing bank account. I'm thrilled to be publishing an urban fantasy in July called Nephilim, but not so thrilled at the time and cost it sometimes takes to promote it. However,  as my buddy Shakespeare says, "It is what it is." Having rediscovered the wonders of the freelance writer, I hope to use that money towards my promotion fund.

Its been a while since I've written any freelance articles, and I found myself in need of a refresher on the importance of using keywords while writing. A keyword is not a single "word," but a phrase people use in a search engine to find what they are looking for. The trick is that it must be exact. For example, if I were writing an article about the pleasures of opening your own at home daycare, the keyword would be "at home daycare." I'd have to use it exactly the same way, with the same punctation every time. Even the slightest variation--at home day care--could throw a search off.

Keywords help drive people to your website, article, or blog. As a re-emerging freelance writer, I want to make sure the keywords I use in my articles are the most profitable for the client. There are lots of sites online available to help you figure out what keywords to use in your own articles. Guess what? All you have to do is type in "keywords" in your search engine to find them!

Think about how this might apply to your personal blog. How might using keywords improve traffic to your site? It's worth the time to do a little research on this!