Deborah Woehr

The kids were home with me yesterday because of Martin Luther King Day. I did manage to submit WBA’s RSS link to over 50 feed and blog directories before my youngest walked into my office and moaned, “Lunch!”

Then the oldest piped up. “Can we go to Michaels? I need to get some balsa wood so I can build my house.”

My oldest is a burgeoning archictect, building models as well as virtual houses. He wanted supplies, and his brother wanted something to eat. So we went out and had a nice afternoon. It felt good to get out of the house and have a sit-down lunch with my sons.

I spent the rest of the afternoon and most of the evening watching The Stand and crocheting. Despite it’s quirks and inconsistencies, this is one of my favorite movies.

Now, my oldest is going around, spelling everything M-O-O-N.

This site is finally done! The RSS Feed Directory is working from both the admin and user section. The blog section doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out, which I suspect was the biggest reason for the lag in participation.

There are a couple of minor cosmetic issues to iron out, but the site is ready for an official launch. I’ll be making another announcement on WBA first thing tomorrow morning, so stay tuned!

Quoted from Some Students Prefer Classes Online

In fact, the distinction between online and “face-to-face” courses is blurring rapidly. Many if not most traditional classes now use online components — message boards, chat rooms, electronic filing of papers. Students can increasingly “attend” lectures by downloading a video or a podcast.

One of the arguments presented in the article were the motivations of the students. Some are too lazy (or hung over) to get out of bed and go to class, yes. But there are the rest, who either can’t get into a required class because it’s full or don’t have time during the day because they work.

I’ve taken classes traditionally, online, and through correspondence. The latter two methods weren’t any more difficult academic-wise. However, there were days where I had to force myself to sit down and complete an assignment. Self-discipline and motivation are key components to succeeding with the distant learning method.

The one thing I liked the best about distant learning was that I can go at my own pace. There were some subjects that I zoomed through, while others needed more time and attention. There are some subjects that I would rather take in a traditional classroom. Math has always been my worst subject, for instance.

If you were forced to change careers and needed a degree, which route would you take?

I’ve just created some buttons for the WBA site (which I need to fix because they are too dark) and began the uploading process. First off, you have to set the permissions of your WP-Content file to 777. Otherwise WordPress can’t create the upload directory.

Now this is where things get interesting. The new version doesn’t have a thumbnail option for uploading images like 1.5 and the earlier versions did. Instead, it creates a thumbnail automatically.

That’s cool. It’s one less button I have to press. But, here’s the thing I don’t like–the way the image files are stored by year, and then month. I prefer the old-fashioned alphabetical list fashion.

If I need to delete files, I’ll have to wade through a bunch of folders in my CPanel to get to them. Perhaps the next version would allow us to delete unwanted image files directly from the interface. That feature is officially on my WP wish list, as of today.

This was another book I bought when I started writing. Edelstein lists 100 personality types of all ages and how they effect each other. I’ll give you an excerpt of a profile.

Creator Style

Internal

• Artistic, intuitive, sensitive
• Observant, sees the big picture
• Persistent
• Does not like conformity; unconventional
• Generates ideas and becomes easily absorbed by ideas
• Introverted, internal focus
• Internal world is a pleasant place, a respite from the outside
• Tolerates ambiguity, allows disorder
• Fanciful and enthusiastic
• Imaginative and captured by the innovative
• Likes his or her own company

Interpersonal

• Can work alone for long periods
• Forgetful, undependable in areas outside of focus
• Not good for corporate life because he or she can be impractical
• Good-natured with others, but not always sensitive to them
• Reacts to stimuli emotionally and subjectively
• Sees the world in unique ways
• Not swayed by the group; indifferent to “What the neighbors are doing”

Normal––>Extreme

Impractical, can become––>accident prone

The profile goes on to summarize a creator’s childhood and adulthood. While interesting, this isn’t 100% accurate because we are a blend of personalities brought on by our experiences. Many of the Amazon reviewers complained about the profiles being too stereotypical.

Well, duh. This book was designed as a primer to get you started. I read this book from cover-to-cover the night I received it. That’s saying a lot because I’m a slow reader.

If anything, The Writer’s Guide to Character Traits will get your imagination pumping.

I read this book cover to cover and thoroughly enjoyed it. Ms. Benedict not only gives examples of erotic scenes and different scenarios like ‘the first time’ and ‘adultery,’ but gives good pointers on how to write each of them. She teaches you how to get inside your characters’ heads and realize their backgrounds, beliefs, anxieties, etc. before writing The Big Scene. It is important that you know your characters because if you don’t, you’ll produce nothing but empty pornography. Get this book if you want to write about quality sex.

If you haven’t received my email, please check out the WBA site. After months of software testing, I came to the conclusion that WordPress was my best bet. I’ve never had prospective members complain about not being able to register at The Writers Buzz. That was a biggie for me.

The only thing I really liked about Xoops was the directory and the RSS feed. I had no problems with the directory, but the RSS feed was too selective about the feeds it would display. I finally found the perfect solution, an RSS Feed Directory. This combines two features into one. After this fiasco, I’m a firm believer in Simple is Better.

Keep your fingers crossed because if this plan works, then I can cross one more thing off my list.

This book is great to have if you feel you need to improve the dialogue in your fiction. It is written with a conversational style throughout. Chiarella points out that real-time dialogue is not the same as fictional dialogue. By listening to other people talk (as well as myself), I find that he is quite correct. He teaches you how to push your story forward with dialogue, when to make your character talk (or shut up), and gives good examples of ‘tennis court talking’ or dialogue that goes nowhere.

Also included are exercises to help you practice writing dialogue. Writing Dialogue was published back in 1998 (can’t believe how long ago that was), but it is still useful today.

My husband and his friends find some of the weirdest things on the Internet. Last night, he told me about this pic that his friend found of some guy who tattooed his penis to look like a snake. We sat there and discussed how that could be possible, given the dynamics of male genitalia. But we couldn’t come up with any definitive conclusions.

He sent me the pics this morning, and I have to say that I’m just floored by the incredible detail that went into this tattoo. Even his testicles are tatted. I’m tempted to post them up here, but I don’t want to shock anyone. If you’d like to see the pics, reply with your email and I’ll forward them to you.

As a horror writer, these shots gave me some ideas.

This book is a compilation of book marketing and promotion tips from 300 writers of many genres. Topics cover the traditional methods of book signings, press releases, direct mail, Internet Marketing, etc. Two tips stand out for me right now.

1. Book signings at military base exchanges. Arranging a book signing at these exchanges will give your book broader exposure compared to the traditional bookstore. That’s because Anderson News (the distributor responsible for those book racks) is the same company that stocks books at Wal-Mart, Kmart, airports, grocery stores, etc.

2. Business Cards: Put something on them that your readers will want to keep. For example, one writer made a wind chill factor chart for bikers to tie in with his fictional novel involving Harleys. He stuck this on the back of his business card and put the information for his book on the front.

Stuck on how to set up a press kit for the media? You’ll find step-by-step instructions in this book. Also included are profiles for editors and ghostwriters, writer’s resources, and success stories. I haven’t read the other books on book marketing in my “To Read” pile, but I think this book is going to be my Bible.