Deborah Woehr

This theme reminds me of two things: my novel (which is set in the Arizona desert) and the vacation I’ll be going on next month. My husband made reservations to go on a tour of the Southwest. We’ll be flying into Phoenix and driving from there. Our first stop is Sedona, which I’ve been dying to visit since my mother-in-law told me that it was an artists’ town.

Then we’ll be moving on to Flagstaff (another place I’ve been wanting to visit) where they have a neat observatory, Four Corners, the Grand Canyon, and finally Vegas. I’ve been to Vegas once, but got locked into touring the casinos (Mom paid, so Mom dictated).

I’m looking forward to this trip. We haven’t taken our kids on a vacation since 2000, so we’re way overdue.

I spent all day importing and formatting the anthology entries into InDesign. While Word and Nissus Writer formatted the smileys into cute little circles, InDesign displayed them as highlighted squares. Quite annoying.

But, I didn’t have to re-enter all of the hyperlinks! Tomorrow’s work involves compiling them all into an InDesign “book,” along with the Introduction, Acknowledgment page, TOC, and Copyright pages. I’m seeing a light at the end of the tunnel, but it can’t come fast enough.

This weekend will involve searching the Internet for the proper way to format a non-fiction book with images, writing the synopsis and query letter. I’ve got one lead for a small press publisher so far. I guess that’s better than nothing, but I’m hoping to find more.

I’ve had enough thinking and writing for today. Catch you tomorrow.

Remember the days when you had to go on grueling multi-city book tours in order to get your books in the hands of a scant few people? Technology has boomed over the past ten years, thanks in large part to the Internet. This boom has spawned the ebook, blog, video and podcast.

Technology isn’t stopping there. Canadian author, Margaret Atwood, has created a digital handwriting device (called The LongPen) which records the author’s signature, zips it to a specified location, and uses a robotic arm to sign the book. Imagine conducting a virtual booksigning anywhere in the world from your hometown. Pretty impressive, huh?

The device is still in beta form and malfunctioned when Atwood tested it out at the London Book Fair. Once the bugs get worked out, this will be a cool asset to have in your PR arsenal.

I can’t think of a better time to be a writer. Can you?

Quoted from The New York Times

. . . blogging is no longer for amateurs or the faint of heart. Blogging - if it’s done well - has evolved into an all-consuming art.

Isn’t that the truth?! I see three challenges for the blogger:

Challenge #1: Confidence. I’ve read somewhere that it takes about a year to develop your “voice.” That’s not true for everybody, but I suspect it is for most. I’ve seen bloggers who came out of the gate with a strong voice that draws many readers from the start. These bloggers are natural people magnets.

I wish I had this inbred talent, but I don’t. I read the posts from my “list” and wonder if they toil over every word, as I do. Some days I can post up to three articles, while I’m lucky to get one post written on “mediocre days.” I’ve learned not to post anything if I’m having a “bad day.”

Challenge #2: Getting your blog noticed among the millions of blogs in the blogosphere. In my last post I talked about traffic exchange services like Blog Explosion. While these services will help you in the beginning, they are big timewasters because you spend more time trying to rack up credits than blogging. My readers have said (and I agree) that networking with other bloggers is the best way to build your readership and search rank.

Challenge #3: Persevering Through the Tough Times:
Maintaining a blog is tough. If you’ve been blogging for a while, then you know. Coming up with new and interesting topics is not always easy. Perhaps your topic is growing stale. If so, ask your readers what they’re interested in reading. Feedback is always good.

Another factor is time. The author of the New York Time’s article said it best, “Blogging has evolved to an all-consuming art.” Over the past year and half, I’ve seen a dozen bloggers burn out. They either dry up or become overwhelmed.

My problem was that my blogging time ate into my writing time. To fix that, I’ve set particular time periods for my blogging: two hours in the morning and two at night. Sometimes I stick to this, and sometimes I don’t.

If I don’t finish writing a post when my time is up, I’ll save it for later. Often, I’ll come back and see mistakes that I didn’t see before. Or, I’ll come to the conclusion that my idea stank and move on to another topic.

One more thing: When I notice that my thoughts and ideas are growing stale, I realize that I need to get out of the house and get a life. Keeping a good balance is vital to your writing, whether you are blogging or writing a novel. If you can’t think of anything to write, don’t force yourself.

Instead, get out and enjoy some fresh air. Strike up conversations with complete strangers and let them do most of the talking. Who knows, they might give you some fodder for your next post.

Happy blogging!

I remember how it was after I set up my first blog on Blogger. I’d post and wait for comments, but they would never come. It felt like I was shouting into cyberspace and hearing my voice echo. “Hello . . . hello-o-o.”

Out of frustration, I visited Blogger’s directory and became overwhelmed by the sheer number of sites listed. Mine was nowhere to be found, but I knew it was buried somewhere among the tens of thousands of listings. Because I was dissatisfied with Blogger (which takes forever and a day to publish), I started another blog as a subdomain and began experimenting with other blogging applications.

At the same time, I researched ways in which I could market it. That’s when I found Blog Explosion. As my readership began to grow, I became obsessed with marketing my blog. I’d spend as much as a full day, surfing for credits until I got tired of it and just bought them to keep the visitors coming.

Eventually, I got tired of that because it wasn’t gaining me any new readers. I signed up with other blog exchange services, such as Blog Soldiers. But they were too small, and my time was getting consumed as it was.

I began to appreciate the readers who came by on a regular basis to comment on what I’d written. Now, I have a list of blogs that I visit each day. Recently, I restricted myself to a set time when I’m online, blogging or reading other blogs. Otherwise, I’d be online all day and get no writing done.

I rarely visit Blog Explosion anymore because they’ve gotten too big, and I hated the way they lumped the writer’s section. That was one of the reasons why I built the original WBA the way I did. At any rate, my curiosity got the better of me today and I found this: Blog Explosion for Sale

I know that many of you found me through BE. Do you still use that or other similar services?

Nick Wilson of Performancing grumbles about blog snobs. I know. I’ve seen the self-proclaimed gurus, Nick is talking about. I read their arrogant and pompous words, and then I moved on because I didn’t feel that they gave me any knowledge that I hadn’t learned before.

His commentary reminded me of what I call Blog Trolls and Snipers, due to the personal attacks I’ve seen on a couple of blogs that I read regularly. The difference between the two is their methods. Snipers will attack you from their blogs while trolls will go to your blog and get in your face.

I ran across one sniper blog late in 2004 and another last week, where all they did was trash other blogs. Sometimes they were right. But often their words were just plain vicious and hateful.

One of my regular readers (who will remain anonymous) was a victim of a sniper attack sometime last year. They posted their attack, and he responded with anger. That was a big mistake. In the end, the sniper and his cronies ate this poor guy alive.

I was immediately reminded of my time spent on a large forum as a moderator. I’ve seen trolls in action and know that the best thing to do when confronted with these people is to ignore them. To respond is to invite a more vicious attack. The same goes with snipers.

The majority of the time, they are attention seekers looking to get their rocks off by tormenting others. Once they figure out that you aren’t going to bite back, they’ll go search for someone else to pick on.

Reprinted from The Writers Buzz.
Sexual abuse against children is something we try hard not to think about, let alone discuss. Katrina Kittle’s The Kindness of Strangers is a story about an eleven year-old boy, who makes the decision to end his life in order to escape the sexual torment inflicted upon him by his parents and their child porn ring.

Jordan’s plan is botched when Sarah Laden, a friend of his mother’s, finds him standing in his driveway in the rain when he should be in school. From there, the story explodes into a heartwrenching crisis for Jordan, Sarah Laden and her two sons, and the small town they live in.

Sarah takes Jordan in, despite her misgivings, and tries to make Jordan feel like a part of her family as he tries to come to grips with who his parents really are and what they put him through. Kittle doesn’t get too descriptive about the “parties” (which is a good thing), but pounds you with the emotional impact from the beginning to the end.

This is one of the most powerful stories I’ve ever read and will become a permanent part of my library. Highly recommended.

I supported Bush’s decision on the war initially and was tolerant of his handling of domestic issues (i.e., unemployment). But I thought this was one of the stupidest moves of his entire presidency. Why in the hell would he think we would support his decision to allow Arab companies to run six of our ports.

Here, I thought it was just one. But no, it’s six. Can anybody spell K-A-B-O-O-M? I’m hoping that the guy in the article below will be able to stop this idiocy ASAP.

Republican Will Try to Squash Ports Deal

I had a bad moment on Saturday when I stared at my WIP, which I hadn’t touched in a couple of weeks. Plenty of scenes stirred in my mind, but either a) they had nothing to do with the one I was working on, or b) they were irrelevant. I sat there for several hours, trying to focus. I couldn’t blame the hubby or the boys for the distraction because they were gone all day.

Finally, I grabbed my pen and a pad of paper and took them into the garage where our smoking area is. That’s what I do when I get desperate. Soon, the words started to flow. I wound up rewriting the last half of the first scene of Chapter 14 because I wasn’t happy with it, finishing it yesterday.

I had every intention of starting the second pass of my editing for the anthology today. The anthology blog was up, and I had one of the files open. I was all set to go, when my Gmail alert bonged at me. To give you the shorthand version, I got very upset with my oldest.

When I get upset, I have to clean. I don’t know why that happens, but it does. My desk is cleaner; my professional blog has a nicer looking theme and a post on proofreading; and my red pen has been scribbling for the past two hours.