Blogger

Is it me or is Blogger acting up again? The past few days, the links don't seem to be working properly. I click on the name of the post and I'm taken to the page, but  it doesn't populate. I click on comments, and it goes to the page, but it doesn't poplulate. I waste a lot of time with this problem, and I end up not reading the post or making comments. Anyone else having this problem?

I had a dream about William Butler Yeats

I had a dream last night. I was in William Butler Yeats' house in Ireland. It was amazing. His living room was sunken and lined with books and it had the quality of an amphitheater. He sat there reading his poetry and his voice boomed through the amphitheater, his words resonnating. I thought, this is how a poet should live.

"Write Like the Masters" by William Cane

For a different kind of writing advice book, try "Write Like the Masters" by William Cane.

Mr. Cane reveals some of the writing secrets of 21 great writers. Would you like to know what Stephen King did not write about in his book "On Writing?" Would you like to know what you can learn about writing from a dark writer like Kafka? How about Edgar Rice Burroughs, Margaret Mitchell, George Orwell, Charles Dickens? All of these writers were experts at certain aspects of writing, much of which can apply to almost any kind of writing. The very first writer Cane discusses, Honore De Balzac, immediately gave me ideas on how to improve my writing. There is something you can learn from virtually every one of the 21 writers he discusses. "Write Like the Masters" is a book that will open your mind to new and different techniques. You'll be pleased by what you learn.

"Write Like the Masters" is available on Amazon.com (see my slideshow).

Whether to finish what we've started or to start something new.

Last year I wrote a blog about this topic: http://richard-writingandliving.blogspot.com/2010/11/whether-to-finish-what-were-already.html. I discussed the value of polishing and finishing what we've started over going to something new before finishing what we've already started. So, here I sit, a year later, still working on the same novel. Is that patience, or what? And when you consider that I've actually been working on this novel in one form or another for over five years, well, that's a lot of patience.

Once again, I'm chomping at the bit to start something new. I so much want to do so. I so much want to move on to new characters, new ideas, new schemes, etc. But is it wise to do so? Is it better to keep working on this same novel, especially when I'm pretty close to finishing it? Tanya Reimer has read it and given me valuable feedback, which is what I'm now incorporating into the, hopefully, last draft. It is really, only months away from being finished if I can just keep working on it, not give up.

This novel is pretty long, though it'll be shortened a bit, thanks to Tanya's sharp eye. But in the future, I want my novels to be shorter. Say, about 80,000 words max. I want to be able to finish a novel within one year, maybe even six months. I'm sixty-five years old, not getting any younger. Am I running out of time? I hope not, but you never know.

I wrote another post: http://richard-writingandliving.blogspot.com/2011/01/making-it-when-youre-young-vs-making-it.html. I praised the value of making it when you're younger, which is difficult to do as a writer. It's lack of life experience (which is a debatable topic, to say the least, but it's the way I feel). Making it young as a writer is getting published (by the traditional method) maybe in you late twenties or early thirties. But, you can make it any time, really, in your fifties, sixties, seventies, eighties, and, with the aid of collaborative authors (James Patterson, and many other older writers are doing it) you can write until your dying breath. But, the value of making it when you're younger is unsurpassed for a comfortable writing life. But, that's out of the question for me. I'm no longer young. I am "running out of time." That's one of the reasons I've decided to self-publish from this point on. The years it takes to go through literary agents, if you can find one, and then the agent to find a publisher, if she can find one, then for the publisher to actually produce a book...well, I don't want to go that route any longer. Yet, I want my writing to be well done, as well as I can make it. So it's back to patience. Patience is priceless. I can only hope I don't run out of time.

My retirement ain't what it's supposed to be. (1)

I'm sixty-five years old and retired from the 9-5 rat race. For the last several years that I worked, I thought a lot about retirement, actually looking forward to it, because I would then have the time to write that I've always dreamed of having.

How would my day go? Sleep until I feel like getting up (sleep has been a problem for me for the past fifteen years--just couldn't get enough of it). Drink coffee and settle down to my computer and start writing. Or, go outside and sit by the swimming pool and read and write--my favorite thing to do. Work for two or three hours, have lunch, take a nap, then write for another two or three hours. The rest of my time would be for whatever I want to do. I'd finally get published and make enough money to pay off the bills and do some traveling. My wife, who's six years younger than me, could quit her job if she wanted to, or just work a couple of days a week (she's a dental hygienest).

It would be the life I've always wanted to live. Give me fifteen or twenty years of good health and writing and I could accomplish my dreams.

But reality has a way of being quite different.

Book Covers

 I'm in the throes of trying to design a book cover for my novel that I'll self-publish before long. I've already self-published a collection of short stories, Battles and other stories. I like the cover. The problem is that the image isn't large enough to qualify it for Smashwords premium catalogue. I downloaded the image from a free stock photo site. I have no idea how to increase the size of the image, or if it's even possible. Add to that the fact that I know nothing about Photoshop, or any other image processing system.

I have now designed a cover for the novel I will self-publish pretty soon. However, I put it up for evaluation at AgentQueryConnect (see image below) and received some negative opinions of it. Again, part of the problem is that the image seems to be too small, and not enticing to people to look further into the book. (I just noticed that volumn is spelled wrong. It should be volume.)

I've been playing around with designing my own covers with the limited tools I have to work with, and this is what I've come up with.

I'm trying to create something that is unified and would be my signature style.














I have to admit the plain versions with no pictures are not very interesting. They give no hint of what the books are about. I really prefer having pictures.

What do you think?

"Imprisoned: Svetlana Garetova's Memoir" by Ann Carbine Best

Do you believe in miracles? Do you believe in fairy tales? If you don't, you might after reading Imprisoned: Svetlana Garetova's Memoir by Ann Carbine Best.

"Imprisoned" resonates with Best's well-sculptured prose that says more between the lines than many books say within their lines. But this story is not about Best, it's about Svetlana.

Svetlana's memoir engrosses you with the story of the brutality that strikes her unexpectedly, and how hope and promise turn into despair and futility. But it is Svetlana's response that turns despair and futility back into hope and promise. It's the story of a Russian immigrant escaping the Russian mafia and searching for a new home, but who finds a prison instead, and once again must escape from someone who might kill her. It is through her courage, and perhaps a few miracles as well, that she finds her freedom a second time.

While this is a story that disturbs, with it's honesty, it is also a story that shows that you can survive and find freedom and happiness after all.

Imprisoned: Svetlana Garetova's Memoir is available at both Smashwords and Amazon at the links below.
http://www.smashwords.com/books/search?query=Imprisoned
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00689ORVK/ref=cm_sw_r_fa_ask_syFlC.0TKCAA6