iBooknapped

Somebody knows how to market their blog!

Someone was linking to these 10 Golden Lessons from Steve Jobs all over Linked In yesterday, so of course I had to stop in and check them out. My fave:

"Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma--which is living the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary."

Think about WHAT YOU WANT FOR YOURSELF today.

You Say It's My Birthday?

Over the weekend, Booknapped turned 1 year old!

I reminisced by looking over my first few posts. It's sort of like scanning a first draft when you're a few hundred pages into your manuscript. I had an idea of what I wanted to do here at Booknapped, but I really wasn't sure. You can sense that I'm blogging blindly, screaming into a megaphone and hoping somebody hears, and more importantly, listens.

So reader peeps, thanks so, so much for listening. I hope you find a book, a poem, a song you never heard before and that you LOVE. I hope it latches onto your brain like an ear worm and hypnotizes you until you forge to your independent book store for an inspired purchase.

Also, if you've been thinking about blogging, but telling yourself you don't have time, creativity, or a host of other qualities you think you need, stop bitching and start a revolution.

This only seems like a digression. Really it's about writing.

Quit complaining. It used to be way harder.

According to research, interval training helps you burn three times the calories you burn during regular workouts. Those of us who are time-challenged and a tad bit rotund know interval training is the shiznit.

Interval training is short bursts of manic working out (speeding up the heart rate) combined with longer periods of regular working out (bringing the heart rate back to normal). Apparently we burn a lot of calories getting our heart rates back to normal. We burn tons getting our rate back to normal a bunch of times instead of just once.

Another reason interval training works: When you only have to give your all for short bursts of time (think 15 seconds!), you actually give your all for the whole 15 seconds.

You know what I mean. I've done some long stretches on the old treadmill--and honestly much of it is just going through the motions--not trying as much as being carried along on the relentless drone of the conveyor belt. If I can burn just as many calories through 20 minutes on the elliptical (with 15 15-second bursts that get my heart going like a Grateful Dead drum solo), I'm all for it.

In my quest for more time, I'm considering if interval writing might produce three times as much good writing. I tend to aim for large blocks of writing time. Here's what happens in large blocks of time: I think I have so much time that an email check here and there doesn't matter. I read a blog for inspiration, which links to another blog, and perhaps a stop at Go Fug Yourself and next thing I know, I've read the entire cache of Cheezburger sites and written under a page.

Large blocks of time are harder to find the older I get, but I can usually create a half hour out of thin air. With interval writing, I get in a couple 30-minute blocks of nose-to-the-grindstone writing per day interspersed throughout so I can get my writing heart rate back to normal in between. Absolutely no breaks during the interval writing block! A single break can take over the entire block if you're not careful.

If you're having a hard time getting anything written lately, try interval writing. You gotta have 30 minutes lying around somewhere--while the chops are in the oven, while you're waiting for Idol to start, while you're supposed to be paying attention in class. Write at a pace that raises your creative heart rate--no editing, no reading through, no emailing your writing group about whether your main character should be 17 or 18. Commit to straight-up cardiovascular writing. Let me know how it goes.

Don't dream it, be it.

"...Not to know that no space of regret can make amends for one life's opportunity misused! Yet such was I! Oh! such was I!"

"But you were always a good man of business, Jacob," faltered Scrooge, who now began to apply this to himself.

"Business!" cried the Ghost, wringing its hands again. "Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were, all, my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!"

Charles Dickens
A Christmas Carol

Oh, what fun! Audible is giving A Christmas Carol read by Tim Curry (!) to all of its members for free, and I'm loving it. If you don't dig audiobooks, you can still read it for free at Gutenberg. But seriously, you should try the audio version. Tim Curry totally brings the sexy back to Dickens.

Narrator, will you please read to me?

I love audiobooks. I am a username-carrying member of Audible.com. I have two mp3 players, peeps: one's just for books.

I don't agree with the assertion that audiobooks are not real books. The knowledge or story represented by the words is in my brain when I'm finished. How is that not reading a book?

5 Great Things about Audiobooks:

• Pronunciation of difficult names: not a problem.
• I clean when I listen/read. I can tell how good a book is by how clean my house is.
• My dog's walks are longer when I'm listening to a good audiobook.
• I read WAY more books per year since I embraced audiobooks.
• I get read to sleep every night.

Of course, they're not perfect.

3 Sucky Things about Audiobooks:

• Sometimes I want to press stop on an audiobook and open a text version--like when the house is clean, the dog is walked, and my finger is poised over the pause button, waiting for a good break.
• I rarely booknap from audiobooks because I forget to bookmark good parts, and I can't flip through an audiobook to find what I want.
• Sometimes when I listen/read, I wish I could see how something looks on a page--like when the narrator in Juliet, Naked reads Wikipedia pages, I want to know how they look.

And then there's my Kindle.

Best thing about the Kindle? It's easy to read while eating. I put a piece of tape over the page-turn button so I don't even get it dirty. Kindles have the option (on most books) to turn text to speech--this was a selling point for me--but I hate robot voices that have no inflection, so I hardly ever use that option.

Some books are so good I have them in audio and print form. I've read a Kindle book and then bought the hard copy too--just because seeing certain titles on my bookshelf makes me happy.

And now I introduce my point.

Want to know why I'm always reading more than one book? Because I keep a traditional book, an audiobook, and a Kindle book going simultaneously. It's not a perfect method, but it's a way for me be able to read in the easiest way whenever I get a chance. Publishing industry peeps who are looking for ways to increase profits, take note: I would pay extra to get a Kindle, text, and audio version of a book in a bundle--not every book, mind you--but just like I shell out extra cash for a hardcover on occasion, I'd have no problem paying extra to get some books in all three forms, and if they were available as a package price instead of $25 for audio, $15 for print, and $10 for kindle, I'd feel like I was getting a deal.

What's your take on audiobooks? Like 'em? Hate 'em? Don't consider 'em real books? Never tried 'em? Got any recommendations? Want mine? Lolitaread by Jeremy Irons rocked my world.

Writer in the Front; Biz Dev in the Back

Occasionally, I get burnt out. I lose interest in reading, writing, and talking about reading and writing. This used to scare me, as I thought I'd lost "it" (it being my muse, my talent, my ambition), but it doesn't anymore. I know "it" will return, so I focus on something tangentially related to writing so I get a break while not actually taking a break.

Lately, I've been attending free online business classes. I am working on a writing career, not a writing hobby, so I have to train the marketing department of Marie, Inc.

Right now I'm learning about strategic planning and execution--or envisioning my ideal future writing career and building a plan that will lead to realizing that vision. I even found a quote worth online course-napping:

"You are either writing the story of the future or you are living inside the story of another. There can be no other possibilities."

Apt for us writers, no?

If you're feeling the burn or fretting the loss of your "it," I recommend visiting SmallBizU, which I found by searching the University of Scranton Small Business Development Center site. As someone who's considered pursuing an MBA, I can say that the classes I found there saved me a few tens of thousands of dollars.

Are you writing the story of your future? Do you train your inner marketing dept.? How? Where? Why?

Answer Key

Did you see what I did there?

I surrounded my post about not having time to do anything with parentheses of days with no posts. I thought it was very meta.

This has been a lesson in post-modernism.

Welcome... but shouldn't you be writing?

I'll keep it short so you can get back to meeting your word count.

One of my local region nano buddies directed me to a great article about removing Internet noise so we can actually write. I'm tempted to give up blogging this month, except that I think blogging helps my writing rather than hinders it--but so much else hinders it. Here's my favorite quote from the article:

"The hounds are out this month, guys, and they smell your fear and self-doubt. So, shovelbloggers will be offering you a tantalizing Vegas-style buffet of endless writing “help” that will range from the indispensable to the stupid to the unconscionably poisonous."

Now, here are various ridiculous reasons I've put off writing in the past:

• I need a new laptop.
• What’s the point of revising before my thesaurus arrives?
• I will write when everyone is silent.
• No one’s writing anything until this house is cleaned.
• Has anyone seen my muse?

I am giving up excuses for the month of November. What are you giving up to make sure your writing gets done?

Self-inflicted Deadlines for The Masses

Well, I've done something outrageous--truly, truly, truly outrageous.

Like legions of crammers, procrastinators, and dreamers before me, I've registered for NaNoWriMo.

NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month, is just what it sounds like--a group of crazy writers linked by a series of tubes attempting to write 50,000-word novels in 30 days. My writing style gels well with NaNoWriMo, as I am a binge-and-purge kind of writer.

Aside from providing me with extra guilt for the non-writing moments of my life, NaNoWriMo provides all kinds of glorious wonderfulness:

• The NaNoWriMo site boasts a procrastination station. Having to search for my own diversions is time-consuming, so this is handy.

• Freedom to genre jump. I know most of you take zero issue with genre jumping. When I wrote about the ties that bind me to one genre, many of you commented that you have no genre loyalty. That got me feeling adventurous, so I may try writing a middle grade novel or some hardcore dark YA during NaNoWriMo.

• My Betas joined too. Writing is more fun with those ladies around.

In the spirit of Booknapped, I read over the NaNoWriMo site this morning and found this gem:

"Win or lose, you rock for even trying."

Nice words to write by, no? Are you joining NaNoWriMo? How come? Got any tips for a newb?

Librarians are Hot; Good Grammar is Hotter

Occasionally (oh who am I kidding?) when I've no time to blog, I point you in the direction of cool sites that will knock your socks off. Today I offer two great sites.

Direct your browsers to Awful Library Books, a goofy literary site where librarians post the worst books clogging their shelves. When you're done laughing it up, head over to Paul Brians's Common Errors page. Paul Brians is a no-nonsense professor with a PhD in comparative literature. In other words, he knows his shiz. I don't think you can spend time at his language errors site without having at least one ah-ha writerly moment. Go learn something, bloggies.

Good sites come to those who hyperlink. Found any literary sites worth sharing lately? Post 'em in the comments, please.

Found: Vocabulary

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day is a good one.

pabulum (noun)

1 : food; especially : a suspension or solution of nutrients in a state suitable for absorption
2 : intellectual sustenance
3 : something (as writing or speech) that is insipid, simplistic, or bland

I could use some pabulum (the #2 definition, not the #3--I have enough of that, thanks).

From: Feed

"'There's a forest,' said Violet. 'It's called Jefferson Park. We're thinking about going either there, or out to beef country.'

My dad nodded. 'It'll have to be beef country,' he said. 'The forest's gone.'

'Jefferson Park?'

He nodded, then squinted while he like clawed something from the roof of his mouth with his tongue. He told us, 'Yeah. Jefferson Park? Yeah. That was knocked down to make an air factory.'

'You're kidding,' said Violet.

'Yeah, that's what happened,' Dad said, shrugging. 'You got to have air.'

Violet pointed out, 'Trees make air,' which kind of worried me because I knew dad would think it was snotty.

My father stared at her for a long time. Then he said, 'Yeah. Sure. Do you know how inefficient trees are, next to an air factory?'"

Feed, by YA author M.T. Anderson, is like, super good. You need to go read it. Like now. Especially if you miss Kurt Vonnegut.

You digging anything special right now? Tell me what you're reading and loving.

It's Virtual Hug-Your-Beta Day!

I used to be anti-beta.

Am I the only one who thought that rather than reading other people's manuscripts, a better use of my time would be going over my own work with a fine-tooth comb?

I can't be the only one. I've traced this seemingly selfish behavior back to my MFA program. Before there was beta-ing, there was workshopping, or weekly in-person beta-ing. Imagine the frustration of repeatedly reading someone's work, offering color-coded comments, and listing suggestions for further reading, only to get my own story back, not even creased because it was never actually opened.

Grrrrrrr.

I found my beta readers by accident. Blogger extraordinaire Megan Rebekah was blogging about how she wished she had a writing group. She posted her stats, sort of like a literary eHarmony profile, and the gates were flooded with wannabes. Well, maybe not flooded, but there were quite a few of us. Megan set up a private blog and named us the Word Stringers.

Some word stringers flittered away, and then there were four.

Anyway, we didn't beta at first. We posted pics and useful articles. We dared each other to meet word count goals. And then someone was like, Hey, we should beta. I was like, Great, 'cause I got spare hours lying around for that malarkey.

Then I read this article about writing workshops at Glimmer Train where writing teacher Jeremiah Chamberlin argues that, "Being forced to analyze the effectiveness of other writers' stories and to then provide them with clear, concise, specific suggestions for improvement will do more to develop a writer's craft than almost anything else."

Once I realized beta reading was purely selfish I was all, sign me up!

This week my betas have been helping me out big time, so without further adieu, meet my beta grrrls, along with what I love most about each of them:

Megan is kind of a hard ass. I've never met her, but in my mind she's dressed as a drill sergeant. I don't bug her with excuses. I just get things done when I tell her I will. She writes, she blogs, she works, she reads, she raises little dogs--and I don't think I've ever read a complaint from her. Megan gets the good attitude award. (By the way, that's not Megan in the pic; that's Tish, one of her dogs.)

Nat is a ray of positivity from the West Coast. She's straightforward, and she doesn't waste time with self-doubt, or minor details, or wondering what so-and-so would think about whatever. Like Nikey, she just does it. Clearly it works, as she's just secured representation from formidable literary agent Sara Megibow. Again, that's not Nat in the picture; that's the state of her living room since she's become a represented writer.

Karen is awesome because she's not afraid to lay it all on the line. She's all, here's my writing. How can I make it better? And when I get done critiquing, she's not all, boo hoo, you hurt my feelings. Instead she's all, thank you ma'am can I have another? I admire her tenacity. That really is Karen, btw; isn't she crazy?

I am changed, peeps. I am PRO-beta. My beta readers point out ridiculocity in my writing, like that you can't move across the country and start school on the same day, or that if two hands are brushing the cymbals, another can't be tightening a bolt on a separate drum. But the best part is how much they teach me, and also the support, my god the support.

What do you get out of beta-ing? Give your betas some love!

Another Writerly Use for e-Readers

Reading my manuscript on the Kindle is enlightening. It looks just like Handcuffs or Bloom--which makes me read it differently than when it's in Microsoft Word or even printed on plain old 8.5 x 11 paper. The Kindle version also boasts some weird formatting issues--proof that I’m unsure when to use hard returns and when to use soft returns, and furthermore, to be honest, proof that I don't know what the hell hard and soft returns are.

Since so many agents are reading our manuscripts on e-readers these days, it’s probably a good idea for all of us aspiring authors to learn these formatting rules. You don't want your beautiful manuscript showing up on an agent's e-reader looking sloppy.

The one hassle of reading your manuscript on an e-reader ends up being a good thing. I have a problem with reading my novel the way an outsider (read: not me) would read it. I keep wanting to stop and change "quiet" to "calm," or now that I’ve been reading the editing blog edittorrent, take out all of the PPPs, or just rewrite the page (the book?) altogether because bleh, but I can’t do it on the Kindle. I’m forced to keep reading.

I'm happy to report that while reading, I feel tension and wonder what will happen next, even though I know damn well what will happen. So in that way, I’m more in tune with how a reader receives the story. Totally valuable.

So tell me, how do you get distance from your own writing?

My Name is Marie, and I am a Dork

A Kindleis upon us!

I've complained that audiobooks, although I love them, don't allow for convenient booknapping. e-books, however, allow readers to highlight, make notes, bookmark, and search the entire text for a phrase--a booknapper's dream.

Perhaps we are moving one step closer toward my ultimate wish: a Find function for life. Do you use the secret codes in Microsoft Word? Like control S is save, and control X is cut, and control Z is undo, and control Y is redo, and so on and so on and so on.

Control F is my favorite. Yes, I am aware how dorky that makes me sound, but I've embraced my dorkdom--I mean, I have a blog, for Pete's sake. Control F brings up the "find" function, as in Find where Character Zero said "I wrote her off for the tenth time today," and boom, the 'puter locates it.

My point: I often wish I had control F in life. When I can't find my keys and I'm late for work, when I know there was peanut butter in the kitchen but now there's not, when I put the cell phone in the fridge: I scream "Control F!" Husband thinks this is my dorky way of saying the F-word, but really I am just wishing I lived in the Matrix.

So do you, and YES, I realize how dorky I am being, have a favorite computer function? Tell me. Tell me. Tell me.

My Novel: As Seen From the Moon

A while back I blogged about revising, and Booknapped reader Milli Thornton (and writer of a cool screenwriting blog) extolled on the virtues of Microsoft Word's Print Preview feature. I love Print Preview too, but it occurred to me that others may not be using this feature the way I use it.

First, a story:

Because I drink too much caffeine, one day my finger was shaking on some computer button and I inadvertently shrunk my Print Preview down to 10%. Talk about seeing your manuscript from a new perspective.

When I revise, I highlight areas that need work. The amount of yellow in my manuscript shows me how much work I've yet to do. Here is a Print Preview of several pages from the last quadrant of my novel in its current state:

As you can see, I still have miles to go before I query. Put the coffee on. It's going to be a long night. I dare you to open up your manuscript and view its Print Preview. At the very least, you will be amazed at all those words you wrote--your entire novel splayed out before you like a patient etherized upon a table (sorry, couldn't resist).

The Booknapper's Code of Ethics

"There are moments when, whatever the posture of the body, the soul is on its knees."

Victor Hugo

I saw this quote on the Interwebs this morning on one of my many quote of the day feeds, and I fell in literary love as I often do. The quote was attributed to Victor Hugo and copied all over the place, but no one said what work it was from.

The editor in me is annoyed. What if it wasn't Hugo at all? What if it was Napoleon or Mussolini? It matters. Words are important. That's why you're here.

Anyway, I visited my favorite virtual place (aside from Booknapped) and scanned Les Miserables and there was the quote in a love letter from Marius to Cosette.

Something else I learned? Hugo says "There are moments when..." quite a bit. We all have our little stylistic turns of phrase, no? My beta tells me I say "then" a lot. She means too much, but she's being nice, and I appreciate that.

Anyway, I got sucked into Les Miserables and I time traveled to my childhood when my father took me to see the play at the Walnut Theatre in Philadelphia, and made me read the book first. Made me research Victor Hugo at the library. Took me out to dinner and made me talk about the differences between the book and the musical.

The Booknapper was born.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it:

Go to Gutenberg and read a book or even part of a book. Think of the long line of writers, and innovators, and individuals who made possible reading classics online free. Think of your own words and how you labor and agonize over each one. They should be read, and they should be attributed.

Booknapping is human. Giving credit is divine.

Sex, Drugs, and Children's Literature

First of all, thanks to everyone who was thrilled to know that Hank is okay. Text messages, and emails, and comments, oh my: you peeps really care. Now, today I offer you something lighter and (warning!) dirtier.

Y’all know I love the Twitter, right?

I'm following the #failedchildrensbooktitles tag* on twitter and it is hilarious. I recommend you go search this tag yourself, but here’s some of my fave Failed Children’s Book Titles from the past few days:

@DAndrewRiley The Hardy Boys and the Mystery of the Hidden Salami
@hollygabrielson Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret Cho
@CalebHowe "The Mile High Babysitters Club"
@seantroversy Are You My Babymama?
@Panger2009 The Red Badge of Puberty
@MrWordsWorth The Little Prince & The Revolution
@andrewpfister Oh, The Places You'll Never Be Able to Afford to Go!
@heywriterboy One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Mercury Poisoning
@ahock76 Mother F#@ckin' Goose and Other Best-Loved Verses

*When you follow a tag, you enter a enter group of words into twitter preceded by a tag (like #failedchildrensbooktitles). Doing this makes it easy for a site like TweetDeck to stream the tag for you. Anyway, when someone wants to jump in on the conversation, they tweet their contribution and the secret tag. Got it?

Or you can just read some by clicking #failedchildrensbooktitles

...I'm Walking into Interwebs, So Leave a Message and I'll Call You Back...

"Communication Breakdown" occasionally plays in my head when I wake up to see how much content has gathered in my inbox while I slept.

Sometimes I forget I'm not your average Web user. I'm connected about 90% of my waking day. Most of my work is done on computer (or The Pute, as I affectionately call it), as is most of my play. You're reading a fairly obscure (but growing!) blog, so I guess you're not the average Web user either.

I'm glad we found each other, and I also sort of wonder how we did.

Let's share our favorite tools for navigating this World Wide Web. I'll go first:

3. I love iGoogle, which allows RSS feeds of all of my favorite blogs to load right to my home page. Any time I click back to Google to, well, Google something, I end up reading a post, adding a comment, and learning something.

2. I love M-W's Word-of-the-Day email. It takes me about 7 seconds to read and delete, and I learn new words as well as the actual meaning of words I've been using incorrectly for years.

Today's word is "inexorable," meaning not to be persuaded, moved, or stopped; relentless.

That's how I'm feeling about my novel right now, inexorable.

It's funny how on my first edit, I'm all: This blows.

Second edit: All right, I guess it's not that bad.

Third edit: Who wrote this?

1. And last, but not least, the Twitter. People who tweet are my people, or my tweople, as it is. Twitterers are early adopters, they thrive on new information and technology, they aren't intrusive, they can say their piece and move on.

Twitter has lead me to so much fun stuff, like this flow chart of Sarah Dessen love interests, turned me on to news before the news even knew about it, and introduced me to True Blood, my current obsession.

So tell me, what Web apps do you depend on? Share the most useful tools in the comments so I can download and enjoy.