Tips from Esther Gokhale's TEDx Talk. Today you can practice "stretch sitting". Connect with her on Facebook and Twitter for more posture advice.

In yesterday's post here at the Blood-Red Pencil , I talked about how writers can use PR to grow their writing career. Today, we're moving on to advertising, a totally different beast. As mentioned yesterday, PR tends to have a long-term goal in mind, that of building a relationship with its public so that the public grows to trust the company, to have loyalty with that company. In the end of all that relationship building, the company hopes that the relationship is strong enough that the public will buy their wares, support their causes, etc. Buy Now image by Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net Buy me now! Advertising typically has a short-term goal in mind. You are attempting to lure your audience into buying your products/services or support your causes NOW, not later. Being able to communicate in a concise way the availability and benefits of your products is vital in advertising. What is your product? Why does your audience need this product? What can thi...

If you’re looking to develop or redevelop your public relations (PR) and advertising activities for your writing career, it’s good to first differentiate between the two sets of activities and then take time to consider how each will benefit your career. Before doing so, however, you do want to think about two things: 1) how you will brand yourself and 2) who you are trying to reach because without knowing these two things, developing PR and advertising activities won’t connect with your career goals and with those (your audience) who will help your career grow. PR image by Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net Let’s build a relationship for the long haul . PR often has a long-term goal in mind. You are attempting to build a relationship with your public so that they become loyal to you, so that they begin to trust you. In building that long-term relationship and the loyalty and trust, your public ultimately comes on board to buy your product, support your causes, etc. On...

This is probably not the time to talk about this subject, especially while so many people are busy working on NaNoWriMo projects, but we have to face it: sometimes, the writing won’t come. There are some writing experts that will tell you to write through this moment to get back to the story. I’m not really a fan of that suggestion because it can lead to a lot of frustration and negative feelings when/if the story continues to stall. Writing is mental; it’s also physical, emotional, psychological, and for many people, spiritual. When problems arise in one or more of these cogs, writing can stall. Sure, you can push your way through and perhaps suffer agitation, frustration, and anxiety over the lack of writing. However, you can also tell yourself, IT’S OK, and work in other areas to keep your creative juices flowing and ready for when your story returns. So, what can you do when the story packs its bags and flees? Here are a few suggestions. Play with your characters ....

a clean slate beat around the bush step up to the plate tall, dark, and handsome ace in the hole dark and stormy night Some readers will cringe if they pick up your book and read stale metaphors and clichés like the ones above. With your first draft, you want to get the story on the page, PERIOD. However, in revisions, you want to make a pass for these metaphors and clichés and delete and/or freshen them up. How to do this? A few tips: think about your story’s setting – where are we, what's in this world? Think about your characters – who are they, what do they do? Revising metaphors and sprucing up overly familiar language so that they connect with your story’s context will make them more organic . . . and unique to your story. ----- Writing in 140 is my attempt to say something somewhat relevant about writing in 140 words or less. Shon Bacon is an author, doctoral candidate, editor, and educator. She has published both academically and creatively while ...

“Let the story tell itself.” – Author Tim O’Brien Want to write a great story? Get out of its way. Your story isn’t about you. Characters might share facets of your personality. Issues you care about might be woven throughout the story. However, the story is about your characters and their conflicts, obstacles, drama, decisions. Give your story center stage. Show, don’t tell: avoid adding comments and clarifications and over-explaining setting and characters’ thoughts and actions. Develop unique metaphors and similes that tie into your story: the setting, characters. Let the story unfold as it needs for the characters present – not how you want it to unfold. Readers don’t want coincidences; they want consequences authentic to the story being told. Focus on the story , and it will be told – not your version of it. ----- Writing in 140 is my attempt to say something somewhat relevant about writing in 140 words or less. Shon Bacon is an author, doctoral candidate, e...

This post originally aired on 11-06-2008, and I thought a reminder that we can write garbage in our first drafts would be helpful. Getting it right the first time is rare indeed. Think about this as you head into the New Year. Writing is a talent, a dream, an obsession, a release, a thrill, but it is also a craft. The words don't just magically appear on paper - all arranged at their finest. The words we love to read were painstakingly crafted by the author, paragraph by paragraph, line by line. Anne Lamott, a wonderful writer describes the process in her book, Bird by Bird , this way: “For me and most of the other writers I know, writing is not rapturous. In fact, the only way I can get anything written at all is to write really, really shitty first drafts." And further: “The first draft is the child’s draft, where you let it all pour out and let it romp all over the place, knowing that no one is going to see it and that you can shape it later.” What wonder...

In keeping with our theme of "fear" leading up to Halloween, I decided to write about my fear of Twitter . Well, maybe not exactly my fear. More of my "oh, my gosh, what am I supposed to do" reaction to the social site when I first joined. I was reminded of that at a writers' workshop I attended this past weekend in Pittsburg, Texas. Yes, Pennsylvania, there is another Pittsburgh and we do spell it differently. Pittsburg is the home of the Northeast Texas Writer's Organization (NETWO) and they do a terrific conference every spring, as well as these periodic day-long workshops. There are a lot of writers in the area, and many others make the 100-mile trek from the Dallas Metroplex to attend the workshops, so there can be up to 50 attendees. Which is pretty good for a rural area with towns of less than 4,000 people in a 50-mile radius. At this last workshop, of those nearly 50 folks, there were only three of us who used Twitter. One of the presenters, Rus...

In keeping with our August theme of  "Back to School",  I thought I would offer some tips for those wanting to learn more about publishing and marketing e-books. This post is not going to be about how to format a book for the Kindle and other reading devices. Nor is it going to go into the details of editing and design and cover art - although all three are important and an author would be wise to make sure all three are professionally done. There are a number of resources available to take an author through those processes.   The ABCs of e-book format conversion: Easy Calibre tips for the Kindle, Sony and Nook By John Schember     How to Publish Your Own Amazon Kindle Ebook By Tony Bradley, PCWorld Or you can go directly to Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) which also has information about CreateSpace for self-pubbing books in trade paperback.  For Barnes and Noble, their publishing arm is PubIt, and there are easy directions for forma...