In The Beginning Starting with a Start

Where to begin with your writing. Some suggest outlines, or mind maps or stream of consciousness, or carrying a note book around to jot down ideas for several weeks. 

The Bible begins at the logical place-—the beginning. The very first verse starts:

Genesis 1:1. In the beginning . . .

The phrase “In the beginning" is a translation of the Hebrew word bereshith. In the case of several of the books of the Bible, the first word is taken as the title of the whole (much as Papal bulls are named for the two Latin words with which they begin.) The Hebrew name of the first book is, there, Bereshith.

The first book was named “Genesis,” which means, literally, “coming into being.” It implies a concem with births and beginnings which is appropriate for a book that begins with the creation of heaven and earth

Now, let's not jump to the conclusion that I'm a good and kind Christian, but the Bible does offer some keen ideas about the creative aspect of us humans. So, let's start there -- In the Beginning...

Wake

Wake...

Do you remember who you are?   Do you recall your power?   You and I, We have created Gods. We have frozen oceans, filled jungles far and wide with beasts of great wisdom and immorality.   We have conjured suns, pulled moons from their orbits, and snapped the wires suspending Heaven, just to hear the enraged coiling as they spiral and whine across the sky.   We have bathed in moonlight and Consumed the Nectar of starshine -- then washed the world clean with rain. Do you remember?

On our off days we created kings, crowned their heads, then removed their heads with guillotine -- just as an exercise -- a proof of concept. And when the God we created became unworthy, we diminished his followers to madmen and extremists, then executed the God.

Did you forget Lilith? Ashera?... the poets of Sumer?

A chariot of pine-wood, a litter of box-wood.A bunch of fruits, a garland growing luxuriantly.A phial of ostrich shell, overflowing with perfumed oil.

Have you fallen so far that your powers are only dreams of  another era?. look around you, listen to the ether. We will be needed  to rebuild their myths, to set right their temples, and pull their humanity from the ash and skulls.. We are the wizards The story must not die...

...wake

Forensic Blunders #001 The Bleeding Corpse

The Bleeding Corpse: Your MC comes down the wooden stairway, that was old when he was born, and into the cellar of the house. He descends into musty smells, feeling layers of dust and dank as he submerges into the thick air. A single naked, low watt light-bulb hangs over the laundry area to the right, On the smooth cement floor inside that lonely pool of light lays the body of Mrs. Katt. Blood is dripping out of her eyes like tears...

Your character better rush to the phone and call Emergency help. Now! Go! Because Mrs. Katt is still alive!

FramingA Useful Tool For Fiction Writers

The Meaning of an Event 
Is Based on Where
We Experienced The Event

Framing has become an In-Demand field of study since 2000. While it has enjoyed  steady level of interest from researchers since its conception, the field has a  stronger following now, as enough studies have been performed to develop practical applications in:

• Persuasion, 
• Marketing, and 
• Decision Making 

Academic fields interested includes Psychology, Sociology, Neurology, Neuro-Psychology, Leadership Theories and any Behavioral Study area you can think of.

The quick n dirty explanation of what Framing covers, is :
Meaning depends on Context. So -- Control the Context.

Sumptuary Laws

“sumptuary”
― Elizabeth Fremantle, Queen's Gambit Free 1st Chapter

The earliest sumptuary regulations in Christian Europe were church regulations of clergy, distinguishing what ranks could wear which items of vestments or (to a lesser extent) normal clothes on particular occasions; these were already very detailed by 1200, in early recessions of canon law. Next followed regulations, again flowing from the church (by far the largest bureaucracy in Medieval Europe), attempting to enforce the wearing of distinctive clothing or badges so that members of various groups could be readily identified, as branded criminals already could be.

The Stroop Effect

In psychology, the stroop effect is a demonstration of interference in the reaction time of a task. When the name of a color (e.g., "blue", "green", or "red") is printed in a color not denoted by the name (e.g., the word "red" printed in blue ink instead of red ink), naming the color of the word takes longer and is more prone to errors than when the color of the ink matches the name of the color. The effect is named after John Ridley Stroop, who first published the effect in English in 1935. The effect had previously been published in Germany in 1929. The original paper has been one of the most cited papers in the history of experimental psychology, leading to more than 701 replications. The effect has been used to create a psychological test (Stroop test) that is widely used in clinical practice and investigation.

The Ever Changing Zen of the Fiction Writer

Has Your Zen Changed without Your Permission? That happens with zen things. If you have discovered that your needs are changing and the style of your writing is also changing, such as – You started as a Pantser, and now you find you need Outlines and Research Notes -- Don't worry, you'll alter that perspective several times before you come to a "workable theory"  of how you work best as a writer. That is, if you ever do. Writers and other Artists use the mind in ways that other efforts do not. But that doesn't mean that this needs to cause strife.

Let there be Light

Light is both waves and particles, but is also something that can not be truly imagined. Physicists have noted that light tends to behave more like a classical wave at lower frequencies, but more like a classical particle at higher frequencies, but never completely loses all qualities of one or the other. Visible light, which occupies a middle ground in frequency, can easily be shown in experiments to be describable using either a wave or particle model, or sometimes both.

The McGurk effect

The McGurk effect is a perceptual phenomenon that demonstrates an interaction between hearing and vision in speech perception. The illusion occurs when the auditory component of one sound is paired with the visual component of another sound, leading to the perception of a third sound.

It was first described in 1976 in a paper by Harry McGurk and John MacDonald titled "Hearing Lips and Seeing Voices".

Talking to People You Don't Know

Over the last few decades I have seen the results of Fear Poles. Enviably the Fear of Public Speaking would be in the top three on the lists. Often, Public Speaking would be listed higher than The Fear of Death. This makes sense because you only die once and no one really grasps that it is going to happen to them today -- but giving a talk at the office could happen any time, any day, on the whim of unpredictable people in positions of power.

Meeting new people at a business gathering or social event is not that much different -- at least in the Fear Factor area. Instead of being placed in front and lit up for ridicule. Social parties are more like "Snakes on a Plane". The whole thing feels stupid, but those are still snakes and you are still trapped on a plane.

Thoughts on Blame vs Fault

Does Blame and Fault mean the same thing?

 i.e.  "It's your fault",
"You are the one to blame."

Fault is a geological term we use to point out the error, crack, deficient area of skill -- "It's your fault" This is your mistake, your hole in the ground -- thus there is a specific error. You can point at it.

Blame is to accuse, or denounce but not with the specific reason as a requirement. Blame is a short word for Blaspheme as well.

They are synonymous certainly, but I don't feel they are the "same" in meaning.

Emotional Motivator Maslow wasn't Correct

What is an Emotional Motivator ? What good is it? 

Symbolism is a effective
method of  demonstrating
emotional turmoil by
implying rather than describing

On the Emotion Description pages for the Encyclopedia Project there is a section titled Motivator. This post is to give you an idea of what that section supplies and some possible uses for the information.

There are several studies which have suggested over the century that emotions, and not logic drive our actions. Those who develop and utilized Marketing and Sales techniques accepted this as far back as -- well let's just say that Aristotle talks at length about it in his book Rhetoric (both 1 & 2).

Maslow created a rational, brilliantly thought out hierarchy of needs...

The Malleable Variance of What We Call Time

In his Rhetoric, Aristotle acknowledges that it would be better if we could make our case without either browbeating or flattering the audience; nothing should matter except "the bare facts." He laments, "other things affect the result considerably, owing to the defects of our hearers."

Your perception of time does not adhere to "world time." You might have the opinion that I should have said, 'does not always adhere to world time', but that's a lie. Your sense of time is as easily disturbed as a puddle of mud, and just as transparent.

If a man with a bass voice reads a script at exactly the same speed as a man with a tenor voice, the bass voice feels slower, by a notable degree.

When your body temperature is high, your sense of time is also slowed. In one experiment, subjects with fevers were asked to count to 60 at one number per second. Without exception, they counted much faster.

Having a low body temperature  you would count slower, as the sense of time moves much faster.

Under the influence of blue light, time is underestimated -- which is why nightclubs use it, to give you the sense that you really haven't been there that long.

Under the long wavelengths of red light, time is overestimated and every thing feels like it is in slow motion.

Word of the Day -- Optimism

op·ti·mism

ˈäptəˌmizəm/

noun

1. 1.

   hopefulness and confidence about the future or the successful outcome of something.

   "the talks had been amicable, and there were grounds for optimism"

   synonyms:

   hopefulness, hope, confidence, buoyancy,cheer, cheerfulness, good cheer, sanguineness,positiveness, positive attitude "I wish I had your optimism"
2. 2.

   PHILOSOPHY

   the doctrine, especially as set forth by Leibniz, that this world is the best of all possible worlds.

Tools for Writers -- and a few for World Domination

These are a bunch of things that you didn't need until I listed them.

FreeMind  A mind mapping program which I find very useful.

Scrivener     This is the all-in-one planning, research, drafting, writing, and publishing tool you've probably heard a lot about.

CoSchedule  CoSchedule is an editorial calendar, task manager, and social media planner for WordPress.

Evernote  I store my brain in Evernote. This is an amazing notebook tool for research. Another is ...

Google Keep     Fast, easy, light and backed up on your Google Cloud. Never loose any note again.

iA Writer  Minimalist writing app for iPad. Using Dropbox, you can sync writing in iAWriter between your devices and Scrivener.

TweetDeck  MarketingTweetDeck is the easiest way to keep track of your social accounts without needing to log in every time.

Buffer  Buffer is a lifesaver. It posts automatically, using a queue-like list of your scheduled updates.

AWeber   It's the #1 mailing list provider, and I use it for all of my newsletters.

MailChimp   "Sexier" than AWeber,  because there is a Chimp, easy-to-use, and free (up to a point), it's only #2 because of feature limitations.

MindMup is a mind mapping tool, like FreeMind, but different. It's super easy to use, but limited.

Feedly RSS reader to keep up with all of your blog reading.

Skype  Skype is my phone -- no, seriously, it is what I use for most of my communications That and ...

The Right Word, not The Most Interesting

Oscar Wilde is my hero. Ever since I learned his last words. This quote is so bloated with meaning I could have gone to hero-worship on it alone.

People only hear, what they understand.

That's a maxim that should be taped to the desk right beside the keyboard, and never covered. People do not ask what a word means. Even though they could right-click the mouse and ask Google to define the word for them, they don't. What they do, is ignore the whole sentence and make something up. This is true. Read "Predictably Irrational". The whole sentence -- just gone..Your pitch is useless from there on.

Why are sex scenes in most books unrealistic?

Who wants real sex? I mean, seriously. First time sex is always a little awkward. Someone's foot always winds up in someone's face. Hands flutter into each other. Takes a while to get a good rhythm going with each other. It is fun. God yes, but seriously. Write a first experience down and then read it out loud. If you aren't one of the participants, it is dull stuff. Like watching golf. It is not sexy. It is not a turn on. It is certainly not visual and more often than not it breaks the Willful Suspension of Disbelief -- that last being why I never go for realism. 

Yes, yes, it is unrealistic and be as critical as you would like, but it is a turn on. If you are going to have a sex scene that doesn't turn the reader on, I would ask, WHY? Why bother. First off, they are difficult to write, even for seasoned erotica writers. You mess up on them, they turn into a lurid low-budget snafu -- just add one wrong moment, or bad line. It takes some practice to get them down and a great deal of editing. 

Second, if the reader doesn't like sex scenes, she'll skim. If she does like them, she will feel cheated if he jumps out of bed to take a piss, doesn't flush and leaves the seat up, before running back to bed to try to get her warmed up again, but she's not really in the mood because she's thinking about the fouled toilet water... so, why bother?

 

Build Readership? or Finish the novel First?

This is just my opinion, but after a couple decades doing this, I would worry about finishing the novel first.

Marketing is a full time job, and you want to be a writer. So, Write.

Seriously. Get the novel done, beta read, edited, and then the cover completed.

Now, this is a fast easy way to get your novel going so you can get back to writing. Because that is what we do, we write novels, right?

1. Write three short stories that go with the novel. Each between 10k-15k words. Craft them with all the skills you have, and tie them directly to the novel you just finished.

2. As a cycle, putting out one short story every week, on Wednesday morning -- Go on to Amazon, e-publish one of those short stories. List them for $0.99 but use the Special pricing of FREE for the four days they will allow you. One per week, and in-between start mapping out and researching your next novel.

3.  At the end of the run, publish your novel at $3.99 on amazon, no free option.

4. Once your novel is up, go to SmashWords, and run the same schedule.

5. Then, write another novel.

Never read or reply to your reviews.

...just saying.

The only thing I would add is a blog, but only if  you are going to commit to posting something every day. That is where you can answer questions or comment if someone gives you an opinion on your novel. But if you aren't going to commit to a post every day, then don't do it. A dead blog is death to your marketing.

Look at the list of my activity over on the side of this blog. See those first two years? Three? Yeah... I had a huge problem getting a readership "Back". Most of my readers (the ones from the writing I've done under my own name) had come and gone, a long time ago. Since I was ghostwriting these series novels, I didn't really give this blog much thought. And I'm grateful that when I came back to it I didn't need to get a readership up in a hurry, because my readers are only just now beginning to trust me enough to trickle back in.

And thank you for the chance. 



#amwriting #writerslife #write

Your reviews don't matterDon't Read Them

Never read your own reviews. And, Never, Ever, EVER respond to them.

Here is a horror story of a man who couldn't follow these two simple rules.

You can skim the review. Go down to the Comments area, where the author answers -- and then replies to his answer -- and then replies to his reply -- and then throws caution to the wind and replies to that reply... Finally a third party offers an opinion and the author spirals completely out of control -- now arguing with himself, and the newcomer at the same time. More voices enter into this rising storm -- and it is like a car wreck with a body on the road -- you're horrified but you can't look away.

Then some people try to offer comments to the Author of the Review Post, and it is like Greek Fire across the deck!

... and then … it just gets amazingly weird after that.

Bad Author! No Biscuit!

Now, a success story, of a woman who doesn't have good mechanics, but doesn't let that stop her, and she doesn't read or reply to her reviews.

She just keeps writing and self publishing...

This novel is 613 pages when she publishes it. Between the covers there are Run-On sentences, which travel half-a-page -- horrible punctuation, terrible grammar, absolutely stuffed with unrequired verbiage, l o n g d e s c r i p t i o n s of getting dressed in the morning, repeated use of tedious responses, frequent use of adverb-adjusted dialog tags.

However!

Perfect storytelling, brilliant awareness of reader, characterization so strong readers frequently forget the MCs are not real -- deep emotional connection, excellent use of dialog, impassioned sexual encounters, lively engaging secondary characters, believable interactions, thoroughly entertaining.

Good Reads 22,105 reviews on one title

... nice following eh?

4.50+ rating

Amazon (Indie Published on Kindle) 396 reviews 4.5 rating

Then she is picked up for Traditional Publishing by Forever Publishing

It's like Cinderella! Or Dorthy arriving in the Emerald City!

Her book is edited by inhouse editors, and republished at 562 pages (a little leaner, and healthier -- probably just liposuctioned the 50 extra pounds of adjectives from around the thighs) A new cover with sexy people is pressed to the flesh, and then it is sent off to the Ball!

Achieves Adoration from Editorial Reviews on reprinting -- just look at the Amazon page.

Author Name: Kristen Ashley

Title : Sweet Dreams (Colorado Mountain Book 2) I believe this is her 20th book.

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11227040-sweet-dreams


She Never responds, or even reads her reviews... which is good because she would probably stop writing -- there are some brutal people out there.

Never read or respond to reviews. They do not matter.

Giant Human Bones!

La mort du fossoyeur
(Death of the gravedigger)
by Carlos Schwabe

In the year 5607 (1847), the Arabs, on digging near this grave, found a deep vault full of gigantic human bones, which excited the astonishment of every one at the great stature of the persons, the remains of whom they were. The Pacha forbade farther digging, and the cave was again closed up.
http://www.jewish-history.com/palestine/walls.html

I love finding things like this while I'm researching for a novel. This one I used in The Flute of Sorrow, which will be out soon.

Of course, when we read these notes from the past, we go "oh my gawd, GIANT HUMAN BONES! Those must be the bones of .. [insert favorite giant humanoid here] !

We humans do this kind of thing almost  automatically.

Fact is, that these were probably not human bones at all, but some large animal. -- and what, exactly, qualifies as "Giant" ?

After I came across this obscure listing, I did a search for Giant Human Bones on Google, and was very surprised at how many are just lying around waiting for someone to find them. A bit of further reading showed that 99% of these discoveries were hoaxs -- someones attempt to make some money.

The listing on Jewish-History.com doesn't seem to be of the same caliber. The people who discovered the bones, buried them as soon as they could, and apparently, while reporting the discovery didn't let anyone else know where they were.  As a possible hoax, this rubs me wrong for two reasons. First, there is no hook in the story for receiving money. Second, telling people a story like this, and not telling them where the bones might be found, leads to people laughing at you, and if they are polite, calling you everything except a liar. You don't even get free beers for a story like this one. But it didn't seem to bother anyone in that group who came across the bones.

In the Flute of Sorrow, I use the bones as the remains of the Azrael, the Archangel of Death. I chose Azreal over all the other possible Angels of Death, because Azrael is the name used by most Arabs, and it was an Arab group who discovered these bones.

My personal favorite Angel of Death is Suriel, -- "Like Metatron, Suriel is a prince of presence and like Raphael, an angel of healing. He is also a benevolent angel of death, (one of a few). Suriel was sent to retrieve the soul of Moses. It is said that Moses received all his knowledge from Suriel, (although Zazagel is credited also with giving Moses his knowledge). In Cabala he is one of the seven angels that rule the earth."

The great thing about being a fiction writer, is no one expects to believe your story.