Let me begin by expressing my biases: Newt Gingrich would make a bad president. And I don’t want him anywhere near my three daughters, especially if his current wife takes ill.

That said, I am on his side in Read more

I have made seven writing resolutions for 2012. I may not fulfill them, but that’s OK. For me to be most productive, I need to set some trajectories for my writing, including some that imagine what things look like beyond… Read more

I've recently come to know and appreciate Brad King's work, both as an innovative media professional, as well as a university professor.

So I've been keeping an eye on a project that he and his talented students have launched: The Invictus Writers.

There's a lot to say about it, but—in brief—for the first volume, each contributor has written a personal essay about the moment in their lives when everything changed as they moved into adulthood. Along the way, they've tinkered with a few elements of publishing as well.

Here are some interesting stats:

• To date, nearly 3,500 have read the essays on Scribd.

• They launched a blog to discuss the process of writing the book. To date, there have been about 3,600 page views on the blog, which itself has 31 posts that were written by 7 authors.

• They put up a Facebook Page here.

• They created a 157-page print book that retails for $10. They also created a PDF that retails for $2.99.

• Soon they'll release an EPUB edition that will retail for $4.99.
  

Now I'd like to point out some things they did NOT do:

• They did not wait for permission to collaborate.
• They did not wait for someone to pay them to do or write what they cared about.
  
• They did not query editors or agents asking for approval.
• They did not look for a publisher to do what they could do very well on their own.
• They did not wait to be discovered.
• They did not angst over putting their work online.
• They did not limit themselves to one format or channel.
  
• They did not wait to learn everything first. They're experimenting and learning as they go.

I hope you get my meaning.

There's lots of emotional activity over on my Facebook page—and everywhere else online!—about the future of bookstores. Some of the activity feels like examining the veins of the leaves on trees (e.g., I must have the ability to read my paper book in the bath tub, dammit!).

Let's take a wider view. When you read and see the connections among the following 4 articles, you'll get a good grasp of the forest.


Where Will Bookstores Be Five Years From Now? by Mike Shatzkin
We have definitely passed what Michael Cader has dubbed “peak bookstores” in the U.S. Shelf space for books is probably dropping faster than the number of stores as book retailers look for other items to keep their customers more satisfied and give those items space previously devoted to books. And shelf space available for publishers who don’t own bookstores is dropping faster than that because Barnes & Noble, the leading provider of bookshelf display space, is aggressively sourcing their own product both to improve their margins and to develop proprietary product not available to their competitors.

Is the Future of the Physical Book the Same the Same As the Future of Reading and Writing? by Daniel Nester
My point is that the idea of what makes up reading is changing. Books are going to be read with increasingly more convenient digital devices, and much of the nature of libraries and bookstores are going to change and even go away.

That’s not a bad thing, and it should not be breaking news for people who are following things with a clear eye. The fear of what the future brings takes over most people who think about books and reading and writing in a way I can’t understand or explain, other than to say it has something to do with nostalgia and not a small dash of privileging one’s experience over what will soon be another’s. As well as keeping one’s job.

Against Reviews, N+1 Magazine by Elizabeth Gumport
Not only do we not want to read about Gary Shteyngart’s latest novel, we don’t even want to know it exists. Newness is not a fixed property. There must be a less arbitrary, more sensible way to encounter books, an organizational scheme better suited to identifying and highlighting excellence; one which doesn’t foreground mediocrities simply because they are the newest mediocrities. “Recent” is not a synonym for “relevant.”

What Books Will Become by Kevin Kelly
In the long run (next 10-20 years) we won't pay for individual books any more than we'll pay for individual songs or movies. All will be streamed in paid subscription services; you'll just "borrow" what you want. That defuses the current anxiety to produce a container for e-books that can be owned. E-books won't be owned. They'll be accessed. The real challenge ahead is finding a display device that will focus the attention a book needs. An invention that encourages you onward to the next paragraph before the next distraction. I guess that this will be a combination of software prompts, highly evolved reader interfaces, and hardware optimized for reading. And books written with these devices in mind.

Today I was on NPR's Morning Edition, offering my take on the Borders' liquidation.

Click here to listen.

Many of my colleagues insist Borders' failure had nothing to do with e-books. Yes, bad management played a big role here. Borders has been a weak player for years, and it's survival of the fittest out there.

But even Barnes & Noble is scaling back their bricks-and-mortar presence and focusing on e-books and online sales.

I love what Peter Turner commented on my Facebook post:
Judging from what one hears anecdotally from booksellers, seems like the biggest factor is the change in customer behavior. People are increasingly using bricks & mortar stores as a show case and then go buy online, where Amazon offers the best service. One bookseller told me jokingly that he sold a ton of eBooks. I asked how so, as he isn't part of the Google Books program. He said, "Oh, folks come into the store with their Kindle and iPad, browse the tables, download their eBook, and walk out." B&N has survived all this, but I wouldn't be surprised if they'll be fewer stores with a smaller foot print in their future.
What do you think? Would you invest your money in a national chain physical bookstore today? If so, what kind?

On July 11, I was a featured speaker at True Theatre. True Theatre is a Cincinnati storytelling event, where everyday people tell true stories about their lives to a general audience.

Each evening has a specific theme—independence was last week's theme—and I told a story about traveling to Thailand on my own, and getting stuck.

To prepare for this spoken word event, I had to spend time, at first, reading the story out loud, then memorizing and rehearsing it.

Aside from the lessons I learned about storytelling (to come in another post), I learned the value of reading a piece out loud.

Now, up until this point, I was probably like most of you. I've seen the advice to "read your work out loud" many, many times. I didn't practice this technique (except for poetry), and found it irrelevant, unhelpful, uncomfortable, and time consuming. Who cares how something sounds when read aloud, unless it was meant to be heard?

But for important short stories or essays, I'll be using this technique. Why?

1. It quickly reveals what sentences or sections I don't care about or believe in. Sometimes when we write, we create filler. We don't think deeply about what we're saying. We include throwaway lines. Reading something out loud has an unusual way of bringing this to your attention. You suddenly don't have your heart in what you're saying. Especially for short pieces, you should care about delivering every line. If you have the desire to skip over parts, or leave something out, then you should edit it out.
   
2. It emphasizes boring or dead description. It was easier, when reading aloud, to realize how the description needed to be relevant to the point at hand, by either helping with characterization, or helping move the story forward.
   
3. It helps develop perspective and voice. Listening to yourself—whether in the moment or recorded—more closely identifies the writing to YOU, and you start to think more carefully about whether the events, details, and intricacies of the story reflect YOUR perspective. (Sometimes we write in an "objective" mind, or with a stale and soulless approach.) Reading aloud helps you think more about how this is YOUR story, and that it's YOU who uniquely decides what story you want to tell.

I'm not sure yet whether this technique would be as appropriate or effective for a book-length work. I hope you'll offer your thoughts in the comments.

(And, if you live near Cincinnati, I encourage you to check out True Theatre for wonderful storytelling.)

I watch Twitter, so you don't have to. Visit each Sunday for the week's best Tweets. If I missed a great Tweet, leave it in the comments.


Best of Best
Put Your Personality at the Center of Your Brand
@DanBlank

Five MUST-DO Book Publicity Tips
@Writeitsideways

10 Ways to Beat Online Obscurity
@copyblogger

Getting Published + Agents/Editors
Literary agents try new role as self-publishing consultants  @missadventuring

Don't submit your novel this week! Find out the worst times to pitch publishing professionals
@GalleyCat

Craft + Technique
A deep editing analysis that demonstrates the power of cadence and specificity in writing
@jhansenwrites

7 Keys to a Thriller That Actually Thrills
@WritersDigest

15 Excellent Tips for Writing a Book
@stevesilberman

Publishing News + Trends
Thrillerfest Wrap Up: Thoughts on Traditional Publishing, Agents and Self-Publishing
@Bob_Mayer

Marketing + Self-Promotion
Join @TheCreativePenn for free webinar on how to create & edit your Podcast on July 22
@BookBuzzr

Author Lee Goldberg on why you shouldn't make a book trailer
@victoriastrauss

Websites + Blogs
Why copywriting is the secret to building a popular blog
@elizabethscraig

Great aggregation of advice: 33 Must-Read Tips & Tutorials for Bloggers
@dbschlosser

Social Media
Does social media presence give you a better chance? Agents & editors answer
@RichardMabry

Novelist John Green uses social media to push unfinished book to #1 on Amazon and Barnes & Noble
@teleread

Self-Publishing + E-Publishing
7 Things You Can Do Today to Improve Your Book Design
@JFbookman

Online Tools + Resources
Interested in starting a Google+ Hangout for writers? Some tips for using the new tool
@GalleyCat

Most Worthy Posts on Writing
@writerWyoming

Writing Life + Fun
A Writer’s Must-Read List
@on_creativity

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Today's guest post is by longtime NO RULES favorite Darrelyn Saloom. Follow her on Twitter, or read her previous guest posts.


I have never met Cynthia Newberry Martin (pictured above), but it seems like I’ve always known her from perusing her blog she describes as “a net for catching days.” I’ve rarely missed a post since I first read Catching Days and almost always leave a comment. But there have been times I sat in stunned silence and did not respond.

On February 21, 2011, Cynthia posted “Obsessions” and I’ve been unable to shake off her words since that day. In a short, simple post she depicted many of her obsessions:
Pine trees that are all wiry and taller than the other trees so they stick out, different textures coming together, abandoned things and places, stairs and thresholds, rainy days and fog, sunrises and sunsets, doors and windows, trains and tracks, lines of laundry, row houses, fall leaves, a full moon, the ocean …
She followed with photographs to match her words and asked, “What’s on your list?” Awestruck, I could only stare at the pictures. But her words tracked me from winter into spring and then summer and coaxed me to pay close attention to numerous obsessions of my own:

Southern live oaks with thick biceps and elbows, weathered tin roofs atop century-old houses and barns, horse stalls and walking wheels, back roads and antique malls, small-town squares with a courthouse and bookstore, sidewalks and trails, soaring hawks, still owls, an elusive chicken in my yard, Louisiana sunsets …



Cynthia illustrated a blog post need not be long to be potent. Like a riveting poem, story, or essay, it must portray its subject from another perspective, leave us changed, educated, inspired—amazed. Always written with care and revised as if the editor of your favorite literary journal may read it.

I cheered when Catching Days’ author became Review Editor at Contrary and co-editor of Hunger Mountain’s new section, “The Writing Life.” As she continues to grow as a writer on a trek towards an MFA at Vermont College of Fine Arts, I look forward to tagging along on her journey as she fills her net, and I fill mine, with more and more days.

Pictured above: Antiques in Sunset, Louisiana
Pictured below: Louisiana sunset

Want to read more from Darrelyn? Check out her most recent article for Boxing.com, on equal pay for female boxers.

Building on a guest post earlier this week by Todd Henry, I wanted to share a recent discovery, Everything Is a Remix. I particularly love part 3, which starts out by saying this:
The act of creation is surrounded by a fog of myths—myths that creativity comes via inspiration, that original creations break the mold, that they're the products of geniuses and appear as quickly as electricity can heat a filament. But creativity isn't magic. It happens by applying ordinary tools of thought to existing materials. And the soil from which we grow our creations is something we scorn and misunderstand even though it gives us so much … And that is copying.
If you prefer not to watch the video, but just read the transcript, click here.

Click here to visit the homepage for Everything Is a Remix.

Today, over at Courage 2 Create, I'm the featured interviewee. I discuss online authority, and how to decide which people and organizations you should trust.

Here's a small snippet:
Authority comes in a variety of forms, and we each have different values that can lead us to disagree on who an “authority” might be. Given that there’s nothing to stop someone from dubbing themselves an “authority,” you have to look for other factors.
I discuss 5 factors that contribute to authority (industry relationships, experience, commercial success, social currency, traditional media coverage), and also identify red flags.

Click here to read the full Q&A.

I rarely cover the children's market on this blog, since I haven't directly worked in that area of publishing and I consider it the province of my colleagues.

But here are the 3 sources I frequently recommend when asked:

• Alice Pope's SCBWI blog. Alice is a longtime industry expert on the children's/YA market.

• KidLit.com. Agent Mary Kole runs this excellent blog for readers and writers of children's literature.

• Adventures in Children's Publishing. This blog is run by a group of writers. I particularly love the worksheets featured here (great for all writers).

Please add in the comments your favorites!

Also, this month, Writer's Digest is offering a premium product collection, Writing for Children & YA, which offers a range of resources for writing better and getting published in this specialized market. Click here to check it out!

The Writer's Digest competitions department is seeking first-round judges for the Self-Published Book Awards. Judges are responsible for completing critiques due the first week of August.

Judges are sought in the following categories:

• Genre fiction
• Mainstream fiction
  
• Inspirational works (fiction and nonfiction)
  

Qualified judges include agents, editors, and published authors. If you'd like to be considered, please e-mail your credentials, plus a link to your website, to Writer's Digest editor Melissa Wuske, no later than this Thursday afternoon (July 14).

Today's guest post is from Todd Henry, founder and CEO of Accidental Creative, a consulting firm that helps organizations like P&G, Mattel, and State Farm generate creative ideas. He has one of the top business podcasts, The Accidental Creative. This post is an excerpt from his recently released book, The Accidental Creative: How to Be Brilliant at a Moment's Notice.


With the ever-increasing deluge of information we all face, the task for each of us is to discern which inputs are relevant to our work and which are simply noise.

But it's not just the sheer amount of information that's the problem; if it were that simple, we could just shut it off. The real challenge is that some of this onslaught of information is necessary for us to perform our jobs. We must somehow engage with the information that enters our daily lives, process it, and turn it into something meaningful.

While our minds are unparalleled in their capacity to experience and assimilate information, they also have a limited bandwidth for doing so. As a matter of survival, they tend to weed out information that is deemed irrelevant to our immediate needs.

However, our minds are also capable of taking random bits of input and forging brilliant connections that are not apparent on the surface. This is essentially how the creative process works—it's the connection of multiple preexisting patterns into new solutions.

One pathway to creating more effectively and consistently is to be strategic about our inputs.

I call the information and experiences we absorb "stimuli." Here are 3 characteristics of a high-quality diet of stimuli.

1. It's challenging.
We want stimuli that will help us grow in our capacity to comprehend complex things. Pop culture is helpful for keeping up with trends, but we also need to commune with great minds and experience mind-stretching concepts and ideas that challenge our existing view of the world. This helps us break through mental ruts and consider new options that were previously obscured by our assumptions.

2. It's relevant.
This doesn't mean that we should be looking only for stimuli that offer specific solutions to the creative problems we are facing, but it does mean that when we are working on highly intense projects, we should somewhat limit our stimuli to materials that will help our minds focus more effectively on those problems. A good rule of thumb is that every single day should include some kind of stimuli that is directed at your personal growth, and some kind of stimuli that you've sought out for purposes of advancing your work.

3. It's diverse.
While carrots are healthy for me, if I eat nothing but carrots for a few months I will probably find my body in serious disrepair. Similarly, we must diversify our diet of stimuli by exploring divergent topics of interest, varying forms of media, and by ingesting the opinions of others we may be inclined to disagree with. This will expand our capacity to process information, help us form new and interesting thought patterns, and stimulate different parts of our brain than would be triggered if we continue in the same stimulus rut.

Another thing to consider is that often our next great breakthrough is more likely to come from outside our industry or area of expertise than from within it. When we diversify our base of stimuli, it forces us to approach problems from a new perspective.

--

If you're looking for a guide to stay inspired and experience greater creative productivity, check out The Accidental Creative. Or visit the author's website to find out more.

Today I'm a guest over at Marketing Tips, a blog by Tony Eldridge. I try to tackle one of the more difficult aspects of platform, relationships. Here's a small snippet:
We all have different strengths, and banding together can be an excellent way to extend your platform in ways you can't manage on your own. When presented with opportunities to collaborate, try to say "yes" as much as possible, particularly when you'll be exposed to a new audience, form new connections, or learn a new skill set.
Click here to read the full post.

Today's guest post is by writer Susan Cushman. Read her personal blog, learn about the 2011 Memphis Creative Nonfiction Workshop, and follow her on Facebook or Twitter.

Above: John Brandon signing his latest novel, Citrus County, for Susan at Off Square Books in Oxford, Mississippi.

--

John Brandon gave a terrific craft talk called "Speed" during the Yoknapatawpha Summer Writers Workshop in Oxford, Miss., in June. Part of the talk included some rules for writing better dialogue. Another section was about how to engage the reader in the BIG picture (through plot) and the SMALLER PICTURE (through voice and authority).
 
John made it clear from the outset that he’s talking about writing that is quick LINE TO LINE, not in the big picture. He’s not talking about flash fiction. He’s talking about what happens on the cutting room floor, and about giving the reader something to do. Here’s what he suggests for the revision process:
Write your first draft. Wait a month, then start cutting.
Make the reader move to keep up with the text, always staying a quarter step ahead of the reader. So, if your plot points look like the following …
•
•
•
•
•
•
… consider cutting every other point, so it looks like this: (X = plot points that were cut)
•
X
•
X
•
X
By piling the best stuff on top of the other best stuff, you engage the reader. He said, “Think of your readers as gifted third graders—if you bore them, they’ll start burning ants. If you challenge them, they’ll follow you anywhere.”

This is where voice comes in—when you’re quick, the writing has authority. Don’t give the reader time to question your authority.
 
Even with dialogue, John suggests that much of your original draft should end up on the cutting room floor. If A and B are two characters engaged in dialogue, a scene might start like this …
A
B
A
B
A
B
… but it should end up like this:
A
B
(deleted line)
(deleted line)
A
B
Writing good dialogue isn’t just about cutting parts of it out. John left us with his 7 Rules for Writing Dialogue:

1. Resist using adverbs in dialogue tags, e.g., she said uncertainly.
2. No character should laugh at what another character says. This signals to the reader that it’s supposed to be funny—like telling them to laugh, rather than allowing them to laugh when the dialogue truly is funny.
3. No character should be described by the narrator as being charming, funny, etc. He compared this to a guy saying, “I can throw a football 70 yards,” and then only making it 60.
4. Be sparing with “Hey, how are you?” interactions. Only do this type of thing if it’s truly interesting.
5. Don’t apologize for a change of subject. Don’t say, “Like we were talking about earlier …”
6. Avoid Q&A in dialogue.
7. Use “want to” rather than “have to” dialogue. In other words, don’t use dialogue as an opportunity for information dump. The dialogue should be there because the characters want to talk, not to serve the author’s need to relay information. In “want to” dialogue, the characters become real persons. They reveal themselves and entertain the reader.

Another tool John mentioned was summarizing dialogue: "They discussed politics." But even when you do this, it’s fine to add something colorful, like “John thinks everyone should have guns.” This is a great tactic to move the story forward quickly when dialogue isn’t really needed.
 
I’m revising the ten chapters of my novel-in-progress now, and I’m making use of John’s rules. But I’m also noticing when the writing occasionally sings, slowing the reader down for a moment to enjoy the sheer beauty of the language. I’m not sure if John’s advice works across the board—with literary fiction as well as commercial—but the sections of his novels I’ve read encourage me to pay attention to his wisdom.
 
How does his advice strike you, as a writer of fiction or creative nonfiction? Leave a comment and join the conversation.
                                                                                      

The latest Glimmer Train bulletin is available, and I love this piece by Kevin Haworth on why he started to read poetry to improve his fiction:
I understood what my professor meant about extending my vocabulary, not just with new, fancy words, but by going back to what I already knew and making each word work harder. I understood how important it was to defamiliarize each word we use, shake off its rust and let it shimmer with meaning. I have tried to write that way ever since.
Intrigued? Click here for the rest of "Reading Beyond Genre."

I'm the guest today over at Writer Unboxed, discussing what I think are more important questions to ask than "Do I have talent?"

Here's a brief snippet:

I have a BFA in creative writing, and when I was in college, I desperately wanted the professors to tell me if I had talent. I was never brave enough to directly ask the question, but I hoped they might take me by the shoulders one day, look me in the eye, and say: “Jane, you can’t waste this gift, you must write!”

Now that I’m a professor, I realize just how irrelevant that question is.

Go here to read what I think the relevant questions are.