I’ve recently gotten into reading ARCS. It’s been fun to do so. Maybe one day I’ll want some people to read my book and leave some reviews, so it seems only logical to do so for other people. Instead of being jealous, it’s better to celebrate with them and help them along.
If you follow lots of writers on Twitter, sometimes they ask for ARC readers. Also, several publishers list on their websites that they want ARC readers. Scout around online and sign up to read some books.
If you write fiction set in the Regency era, you know that there were tons of rules for society back then. It’s hard to keep them all straight. If you’re new to writing the genre, you might need a quick rule book to consult. Could a lady write to a gentleman? Visit a gentleman? When did ladies wear gloves and not?
Here are two very helpful books that helped me. I’ve read others, but these list out rules by categories and explain them. In short, they help me keep my writing historically accurate.
Jane Austen’s Guide to Good Manners: Compliments, Charades, & Horrible Blunders
This one uses many examples found in Jane Austen’s novels and then explains why they are or are not acceptable in Regency society. It gives short but precise explanations that can be read quickly. For example, I had no idea that letter writing had so many rules and regulations during the day or why it was such a big deal that Mr. Collins in Pride and Prejudice introduced himself to Mr. Darcy. This book enlightens on the customs that have changed dramatically in the past 200 years. (In Jane Austen’s day, it wasn’t necessary to explain them since everyone knew.)
The Jane Austen Handbook: Proper Life Skills from Regency England
This one has several illustrations, including clothing and all its intricate names and when one would wear each piece. Each category has a how-to layout: “how to write a letter” or “how a lady might earn a living (if necessary).” If you have a question about when the season is in London, turn right to “how to spend each season.” Even the rules for card games of the Regency are listed.
I’m almost convinced that small presses are the future of publishing. It takes almost a miracle and all planets lining up to actually get a reply from queries to agents, and good luck getting into one of the Big Five (or is it now the Big Four?) without an agent. Most small presses are nice enough to reply, which is nice nowadays.
In any case, here’s a list of small publishers I found that may be useful.
https://morganshamy.blogspot.com/2021/11/the-big-list-of-small-press.html
Today’s blog is about learning languages. I have been known to write a short story in German, translate it into English, and then submit it to a magazine.
In any case, after a bout of Covid, I ended up having two or three weeks of brain fog. Strangely enough, if you study languages intensively, it will give you brain fog too—especially if you do so right before you go to bed. Then your brain processes the new language while you sleep. I decided to take advantage of the optimal atmosphere of brain fog to relearn all the Swedish I had taught myself back in 2010…and it worked! I now know more than I did after my 2010 study. I just watched Peter SFI’s video on how much it costs to live in Sweden and understood every word.
So…how do you get good comprehensible input (stuff you understand) in a foreign language? Youtube is chock full of it. Svenska med Anja is also good for learning about daily life in Sweden in Swedish. Then there is also the news in easy Swedish. And don’t forget music in Swedish.
I also swapped it up, reading books in different languages: German, Russian, English, and Swedish. Now that the brain fog is mostly over (unless I exercise, and then it comes back), the stuff I learned has stuck around, which makes it easier to keep learning. At one point, I was watching Svenska med Anja, and she switched from Swedish to Russian, and I didn’t even notice it. I could have sworn she was speaking Swedish.
So why is learning other languages important? It actually improves your writing in your native language because you learn how to manipulate it even more skillfully than before. It exercises your brain in producing language on paper.
It’s been a while since I posted an entry, so here’s the latest news. I finished editing the latest two OER textbooks for the University of North Alabama’s PressBooks imprint: GR 201 and GR 350. My students and I will find the latest mistakes in them as we go through them. Fortunately, I can change and update them immediately. Anyway, here’s a link. The covers are forthcoming.
https://una.pressbooks.pub/gr-201/
https://una.pressbooks.pub/gr-350/
Who would have ever thought my most popular work of literature would end up being textbooks? Not this girl! In any case, that’s kind of nice! I love German, and most of the textbooks out there don’t work for the way I teach, so it ends up better for me in the long run…and anyone else who wants to use them free in their classes. The GR 202 book is almost finished. Then I guess I’ll get onto finishing that Regency historical fiction that only has 5 chapters and got delayed last May.
The second book in my OER German textbook series is out. Here it is:
Go take a look! It’s free to use. I don’t recommend downloading it, however, because somehow the images don’t download in the proper size. Anyway, my students no longer have to pay for a textbook in the GR 101 and 102 classes. I will correct errors as I find them. After using the GR 101 OER textbook this past semester, I’ve come to the following conclusion:
Book has WAY more exercises than can be done in class.
Students love not having to pay for a book.
Students actually USE the book. I link the section under each homework assignment to show them where they can go if they need help. There are tons of videos to watch that reteach everything.
It seems to be much more successful than the book I was using before this one (that cost $250 new, by the way). If your German classes need a new textbook, you are more than welcome to use this series!
When I get done writing textbooks, I’ll go back to fiction, my first calling.
So I totally went into left field and wrote a book I never thought I’d ever write—a textbook. Yes, yours truly has written an OER (open educational resource) textbook for a German 101 course.
Why? Because no textbook should cost over $40, let alone $250. I’ve been making my own materials for years, so why not combine them into a document, add some pictures and explanations, and give it to my students for free? Want to use my textbook? Go ahead. Here it is…and the good thing is that I can update it at any time! There’s no waiting around for five years for a new edition.
Here. Check it out: German 101
Recently, I beat the original NES Final Fantasy game with a party of four white mages, a seemingly impossible task. Here’s how I did it. I beat the game at level 29.
Slow and steady does it! Level up before tackling dungeouns.
Explore dungeouns one floor at a time, then return to town, sell your unusable items, and save. Repeat until you conquer the whole dungeon.
Put your best armor on the first two characters.
Sail to the Castle of Ordeal BEFORE tackling the fire volcano or the ice cave so that you at least have some of the items that cast spells like heal and lightning. After this, battles get much easier, and you gain more experience quicker.
What does this have to do with writing? Final Fantasy is a game that has limited character development. You can name the characters as you wish, and they have no personality whatsoever. While playing, I imagine all sorts of scenarios that lead to stories for my fantasy novels. What if a party of four white mages went out to save the world and got laughed at by a rival party of four fighters? What would happen? What if there really were magical items that cast spells for anyone—magic user or not? The game gives me a background to project my ideas onto, and the ideas form while I play.
Next up a party of four fighters who can’t use a lick of magic.
In order to research for wriitng yet another historical fiction novel, I’ve been reading the authors that published novels around the same time as Jane Austen did. Lately, I’ve discovered the little-known author Jane Taylor, who also wrote the lyrics to “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.” In addition to that, she wrote several other novels. Today I will talk about “The Authoress. A Tale.” From the first pages, it impressed me with the humor, much of which rings true for those who attempt to write today. Keep reading to see for yourself.
“So, my young friend, I hear you have turned authoress,” said Mr. Newman.
“It is, notwithstanding, the most unfortunate thing I ever did in my life.”
“How so? How so?” demanded the old gentleman, with some impatience.
“My first work,” replied she, “went off very well. This flattered my vanity, and I wrote a second in high spirits; but,” and a deep blush here overspread her face, “but my unfortunate second met not with the same fate; it was refused, rejected. This, though it mortified my pride, did not subdue my inclination for writing; but my ideas no longer flowed in an easy and natural manner. I wrote and blotted, began and never finished, till now my desk is filled with unconnected scrawls, which I am unwilling to destroy, but which I foresee will never be completed.”
I had to laugh when reading the above because it sounds very much like 85% of the comments that I see on Twitter from those who write. Ah, the pains of writing! (Leans back dramatically to put a hand to forehead and sigh.) According to this 1819 novel, such thoughts are not at all new!
Mr. Newman then offers to read the young lady’s unfinished scribbles in order to help the writing process. He reads each piece aloud, stopping periodically to make several dry and almost sarcastic comments. As many of us do, the young authoress makes the mistake of too much narration at the beginning of one work that has little to do with the actual story.
“Pray, my dear,” said the old gentleman, raising his eyes, “have you written particularly and expressly for the descendants of Job?”
“Sir!” uttered the authoress.
“I say, my dear, you have stretched this part of your story considerably too much; but few I should imagine would have patience to peruse such an enumeration of events, merely to be told at the conclusion—’Twas none of these.”
“I perceive, sir,” replied the young lady, “that you know nothing of one of the principal beauties of this style of writing. To wind up the imagination to the untmost height, before you develop the real fact, causes the reader to enjoy all the delight of a strong contrast.”
“As soon might you persuade me,” returned Mr. Newman, “that after traveling up a steep hill, in hopes of contemplating the scenery below, I should enjoy the contrast of being suddenly and violently pushed to the bottom.”
In short, Jane Taylor’s novella pokes fun at the writing process and echoes many of the sentiments expressed by both writers and beta readers throughout the years. It’s too bad that most of these are out of print. Here’s where I found my copy.
https://www.amazon.com/Authoress-Tale-Author-Rachel-Taylor/dp/0371357942/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=The+authoress+jane+taylor&qid=1638890695&s=books&sr=1-1
Recently, I completed my first historical fiction novel set in Regency England. Modeled on Jane Austen’s novels, I wanted to make sure my setting and plot were realistic, so I turned to reading actual novels from the time period between around 1790 and 1815. Unfortunately, Jane Austen only published 6 novels. While I got a pretty accurate picture of life during those years, the bulk of rounding out my education came from reading novels written by other authors during that time period. Fascinatingly enough, most of these were also written by women.
This is a great way to do research for your own historical fiction novel, as well as enjoy some classics that you won’t find on most bookshelves. Of course, it’s also pretty sad that most of these aren’t even available in a decent print edition. You can read a lot of them free online, but for old-schoolers like myself, who want a good, solid book in our hands, if we’re lucky, we might find a poorly laid out print-on-demand copy on Amazon with no page numbers and shoddy printing.
I’m tempted to write to some of the big publishing companies and ask if they will release them in nicer paperback editions, maybe call it “The Regency Collection” or something like that. In my next post, I’m considering describing a few of them to help historical fiction writers who specialize in Regency England. I’m not an expert, but reading actual novels written in that time period is a big help for pinpointing accuracy.
It’s been a while since I wrote anything in this blog. Don’t think the quarantine ate me, however! I started and finished a 76,000-word novel in English in the space of 2 1/2 months, which is impressive even to me. Aside from that, I wrote over 30,000 words in German and at least 10,000 in Russian. The moral of this blog post? Don’t sweat the lack of social opportunities due to the Coronavirus. Instead, see it as a chance to get those projects written that you’ve been wanting to start for a long time. Make hay while the sun shines.
If you’ve ever written a novel, you inevitably end up cutting a chapter or two that doesn’t hasten along the plot. Sometimes you really like them and hate getting rid of them, but it’s best for your work as a whole. Instead of discarding them, keep a separate folder with deleted chapters. When you’ve hit writer’s block, pull them out and rework them as a standalone short story. You’ll have to do a bit of editing, as short stories move along quicker, but you can then submit them to magazines or post them on your website for fans of your book who can’t get enough of your characters.
Sometimes you have ideas for your novel that never even make it into the book because of time constraints. These make great standalone stories as well. Once again, submit them to magazines or put them on your website for your readers. It’s always nice to find more than just a bio and list of works on a writer’s website.
Normally, I write about writing on this blog. Today I’ve picked an oscure topic: how to prepare for graduate school in Russian…especially if you’ve never had the opportunity to go to Russia. It’s tough to bump your language skills up to the next level on your own, so here are a few suggestions to improve your fluency in reading, writing, speaking, and listening.
Russian Motion Verbs for Intermediate Students. ISBN 0-300-06413-6. Even if you are an advanced speaker, this is a great review of motion verbs, which are tricky in Russian. Plenty of examples and exercises and explanations of different cultural connotations of motion verbs. Mastering these verbs is a must for graduate students of Russian.
От текста к речи: Advanced Russian From Reading to Speaking, Book 1 and 2. ISBN: 978-0-89357-375-1, Book 1; 978-0-89357-376-8, Book 2; 978-0-89357-374-4, both books plus online code. This is a great resource that combines short stories with grammar, vocabulary, writing exercises, and speaking about those stories. By the end of each chapter, you will have used the new vocabulary so much that you will already know it. The online code is good for two years and gives you access to the stories read aloud, video clips, and other multimedia. Book 2 comes with an answer key and extra grammar exercises to go with the chapters in book 1. It’s a little pricy but well worth it.
Advanced Russian Through History: Дела давно минувших дней. ISBN 978-0-300-10947-4. If you’re going to graduate school for Russian, pretty soon you’ll encounter Russian history. This book has articles on Russian history beginning with Киевская Русь all the way to the current day. Difficult words are glossed, but you’ll probably have to look up a few more yourself anyway. Free online exercises help with reading comprehension.
News from Russia. ISBN 978-0-300-10437-0. Good source of political vocabulary and exercises.
Other tips:
Find a native speaker to practice with you. Exchange students from Russian-speaking countries love making extra money by working as a conversation partner.
Take advantage of lax Russian copyright laws to watch endless Russian movies on Youtube.
Listen to Russian music in your car.
Set goals, study regularly, and be realistic; you don’t become fluent overnight. Slow and steady does it.
Just a reminder to everyone—publishing takes a while. Selling a story or novel can take a very long time. I’ve sold some short stories in under a week, while others took years. Don’t get discouraged. Sometimes the wait actually makes your work better. You have time to reflect on it and make it stronger. It’s an ongoing process.
If you regularly submit to magazines, agents, or publishers, you know that an error-free manuscript has a much better chance of getting accepted. In addition, if you plan on self-publishing a book, it helps if you clean up those grammar mistakes that can make it look unprofessional. Below are some of the most common mistakes that rough drafts can have; it helps to clear them up in the rough draft stage and will make you a better writer.
Dialogue. If your character says something, it should be enclosed between quotation marks.
CORRECT: “See this? It’s my dialogue,” said Cindy . (Notice that the exact words Cindy said are within the quotes. There is a comma after her last sentence, THEN the end quotes and THEN the speaker.
WRONG: “See this? It’s my dialogue.” Said Cindy. (Often, writers mistakenly put a period after the last sentence of dialogue and THEN add the speaker. This makes ‘Said Cindy’ appear to be a complete, stand-alone sentence. However, it can’t stand alone as a sentence because we need to know what it is that she said.
CORRECT: “See this? It’s my dialogue.” Cindy pointed to the words in quotes. In this instance, I’ve left out tagging the speaker for my dialogue. It’s implied that Cindy is speaking because she is referring back to what was said.
COMMON MISTAKE: If you accidentally put a period at the end of your dialogue, the word processor thinks your sentence is finished. That often leads to the mistake above, and the word processor will automatically capitalize your next sentence.
Addressing people. This is an extremely common mistake. If a character speaks to another person by name, it should be set apart by a comma. I’m going to use a common example that I’ve seen on humor sites to show how it can change the meaning by not using a comma.
CORRECT: “Let’s eat, Grandma,” Billy said. Billy is talking to Grandma. She gets a comma in front of her name because she is being addressed.
WRONG: “Let’s eat Grandma,” Billy said. We’ve now turned Billy into a cannibal wanting to eat his own grandmother.
CORRECT: “Hey, guys! Let’s drive to town!” shouted Amanda. Amanda is talking to lots of people, aka addressing lots of people. They get a comma.
WRONG: “Hey guys! Let’s drive to town!” shouted Amanda. No, she’s not a cannibal in this instance, but there should still be a comma.
Titles. The following words have a period after their abbreviations: Mr. Mrs. Ms. Dr. The exception is Miss. Miss has no period after it unless it is at the end of a sentence.
CORRECT: Mr. Pibb and Dr. Pepper stepped out of the elevator. They immediately saw Mrs. Dew, Ms. Lightning, and Miss Crawford. No period after ‘Miss.’
WRONG: Miss. Crawford immediately fainted. This turns ‘Miss’ into its own stand-alone sentence…which is not a complete sentence. The reader immediately is told to pause afterward, which interrupts the flow of the narrative.
Its vs. it’s. It’s really very simple. If you can replace the words in your manuscript with “it is,” then you should use the one with the apostrophe. The apostrophe symbolizes leaving out the extra i in “is.”
CORRECT: It’s not fair! We use the one with the apostrophe because if we substitute in the words “it is,” the sentence still makes sense. “It is not fair” is the same thing as “It’s not fair.”
WRONG: I grabbed the book by it’s cover. If I substitute “it is,” the sentence makes no sense: I grabbed the book by it is cover. Therefore, we need NO apostrophe.
You may be thinking, “But what about the apostrophe showing possession?” Yes, it does…but only with nouns and proper names, i.e. John’s book, Alicia’s car, the baby’s rattle.
These are just a few of the mistakes that end up spelling rejection for aspiring writers. It’s good to correct them before submitting. Most agents and editors won’t keep reading submissions that are riddled with errors such as these.
That being said, is your manuscript going to be perfect? Probably not, but at least you can polish it up to the best of your ability and increase your chances of acceptance!
Sometimes life is frustrating. If you’re a writer, this can be a good thing and a bad thing. Obviously, frustrations are…well, frustrating. On the positive side, they are a great thing to write about. Your main character has to have something standing in his way, and you may as well get some use out of your own frustrations to deepen the struggles of your hero or heroine.
“But my main character has to go fight a dragon, and I can’t even find time to write?” you may be shouting.
In that case, save up your frustration about not having time and pour it into your mental character development for your character. Let’s say he’s a knight and has to kill a dragon, as in the above example. From now on, your frustration about lack of time IS the dragon to be slain.
Frustration = dragon.
If you find 5 minutes to write, it equals your hero finding something little to help him on his quest, such as a tip about the dragon or maybe a little confidence to go on. Use symbolism with your own struggles to make his seem more real. Yeah, I know it seems cheesy, but it works. The weird part about it is that you’re using all that English class symbolism you learned in high school literature; each piece of your story becomes a symbol for something in your life.
Here are a few more examples.
Time to write = dragon
evil sorcerer guy = job you don’t like
stitch in side = annoying person at work/school
paper cut = scar from dragon battle
Literally everything in your life can be used to write an epic novel or story. It’s all in the symbolism.
Ja, warum sollst du eine Fremdsprache lernen? Kann es dir irgendwie helfen, besser zu schreiben?
Ja!
Mit einer Fremdsprache verstehst du die Welt mit ganz anderen Augen. Du lernst, wie man sich besser ausdrückt. Du kannst eine besondere Szene besser beschreiben. Du verstehst auch andere Kulturen. Es kann sein, dass die Hauptfiguren im Buch dann besser entwickelt werden. Und ja, das hilft auch, wenn du auf Englisch schreibst. Du wirst deine eigene Sprache dann viel besser verstehen.
Und...es macht Spaß!
Yes, why should you write for magazines? Here are a few reasons.
1. It hones your writing skills. You have to be precise when writing for magazines and get to the point of your story.
2. It looks good on a writing resume. Agents and editors who see success with magazines know that you have experience. It can help your query letter stand out from the crowd.
3. It helps give you a boost when you're feeling depressed about writing. Turnaround time on queries is much faster. Magazines sometimes (but not always) give feedback on your writing.
4. It's good practice. Short stories are like a practice run.
5. It's fun. After I got my first acceptance from a magazine, I felt like I could do anything and ended up getting a dozen more before the year was out.
6. Some magazines pay extremely well. Not all magazines pay, but either way, you'll have a writing credit.
7. It looks good on your website. Imagine having a whole page full of writing credits for prospective agents and editors to see.
Now, where do you find these magazines? Here are a few helpful sites.
1. Children's Magazines: http://www.evelynchristensen.com/magsA-E.html
2. Speculative Fiction: http://marysoonlee.s3-website-us-east-1.amazonaws.com/mag.html
3. Literary Magazines: https://www.everywritersresource.com/literarymagazines/
4. All Categories: https://www.christopherfielden.com/short-story-tips-and-writing-advice/short-story-magazines.php#ShortStoryMagsUSA
5. Classified/Calls for Submissions: https://www.newpages.com/classifieds/calls-for-submissions
These are just a few of the hundreds of links I've found. In the future, I'll be highlighting a specific magazine and talking about what they like and my experience publishing with them.
I like making videos. No, they're not going to win any awards, but it's fun regardless. Sometimes I like to make them for other people's books. Here's one I made for a YA book by Kerstin Gier called Ruby Red. One-line summary: Gwendolyn's cousin was supposed to inherit a time-travel gene, but (surprise!) Gwendolyn inherits it instead.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTpHV6PTfHc
Here it is in German. (Sometimes I like to dabble in German because I speak it and also because Ruby Red was originally written in German. (Rubinrot)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1hMjiuOlxI
I made both trailers using a free program called Animoto. It lets you create free videos up to 30 seconds. Anything longer, and you have to pay. They come with music, graphics, etc. In a nutshell, you fill in your info, and Animoto creates the video. The good thing is that most people will watch a 30-second video. Anything longer, and their attention span starts wandering.
So...now we create our own videos! I made this one about a local author's romance/mystery novel.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRQWHzIaV48
Movies always have soundtracks, but why not for books? If you're a writer, you probably listen to certain music when you write. That's cool. Depending on what I'm writing, I listen to no music when writing pen to paper and then listen to music while typing it. (Yes, I write the first draft the old fashioned way.) However, sometimes you find that one song that describes one of your characters to a T.
Make a playlist of songs for that character. If it helps you develop the personality and to visualize what's going on, make a whole soundtrack. Sometimes songs remind me of a critical scene in my books. It helps me to visualize the scene as if it were a movie. Then I replay it in my mind with my soundtrack going, and it helps to write.
Take it one step further. Make a whole soundtrack and then BURN THEM TO A CD--just like an old-fashioned hard copy CD, complete with a cover. Find some clipart online if you're not an artist. Put it on your writing desk so that you can see it. I know it sounds cheesy, but it works. Post them on your website so your fans can read and listen at the same time.
...and now you can "write" those scenes in your head when you're driving, all with lovely background music from your book's soundtrack.