down the writer's path

The Lavender Grouch Bunny: What's a person to do?

Okay, today I trolled the Internet rather than write--at least so far. And what, you might ask, did I uncover? Well, I I found artist EtherBrian's blog and this little gem. He's free and utterly downloadable.

Now I just have to figure out what to do with him. I'm open to suggestions. Right now I guess I can use him to signal my terribly-terribly grouchy days. Sort of like a skull and cross bones warning label. What say you?

DWP discovers: MyBlogLog

These days I feel like I'm running faster and faster to catch up with the world only to discover I've slipped back a few yards in the process. Somehow I missed the talk about MyBlogLog and hadn't heard about Yahoo's recent acquisition. At the moment I can't even remember who or what tripped me into the MyBlogLog universe; but, after logging in and setting up my own account I spent several hours skimming over a multitude of blogs. MyBlogLog is a social network primarily made up of bloggers.

What's a social network? Well, for the intense meaning, read the entire Wikepedia explanation on social network; but for a quick reference try this:

A social network is a map of the relationships between individuals, indicating the ways in which they are connected through various social familiarities ranging from casual acquaintance to close familial bonds. The term was first coined in 1954 by J. A. Barnes (in: Class and Committees in a Norwegian Island Parish, "Human Relations"). en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_network

I like this short explanation:

The personal or professional set of relationships between individuals. Social networks represent both a collection of ties between people and the strength of those ties. Often used as a measure of social “connectedness”, recognising social networks assists in determining how information moves throughout groups, and how trust can be established and fostered.
www.parliament.vic.gov.au/sarc/E-Democracy/Final_Report/Glossary.htm

MyBlogLog takes the MySpace model and applies it to bloggers. (Look for a future spot on MySpace for authors.) For a writer, this can be a great way to build a community of shared-interest members. I joined Wayne Hurlburt's community when I found his member link. I've been a big fan of his BlogBusinessWorld since my early blogging days so that was an instant connection. I also found Georgeanna over at Writer's Edge, another DWP favorite blogger. But I discovered a number of other blogs well worth reading.

Now check out my MyBlogLog group for DWP. Look to the right and find my DWP cartoon under "Author" and click. That will take you to the member page that shows all three blogs that are featured on MyBlogLog: Down the Writer's Path, Writers Quote Daily, and PowerPOPP. (So far DWP is getting the most hits. I'll have to find out how to get the other two going.) Why not log in, set up your blog or website, and join in the fun. Don't forget to say hello, join my group, and start expanding your social network on the web. Oh, and the "Recent Readers" photo list on the left side is a tie-in to my MyBlogLog membership.
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For more on bloggers and social networking, read Wayne's article Blog introductions: Sharing those you know : Blog Business World.

For a look at Georgeanna's experience, read her short posts on MyBlogLog.

If you're wondering what the "Linked in" button is at the upper right, it's another way, though not blogging specific, to social network on the Internet. Use it to expand your professional network and provide you with contacts and references.

Pack power into your writing life. PowerPOPP!

Okay, I've been working on a new site called PowerPOPP. If you want to pack power into your writing life, practice these four principles: Plan, Organize, Pursue, and Persist. Take a look around. Don't forget to sign up for the mailing list. If you have any ideas, want to contribute a mini-article, or have other suggestions, let me know. Your input is definitely appreciated.

I've added subscription boxes here and on PowerPOPP where you can join my mailing list. (There's some kind of glitch in the text for DWP's mailing list subscription but I'm trying to work that out. I truly wish I had a better handle on all this html and widgets and web whatnot stuff.) 2007 should be a busy year. The hoppers around here are bursting with new ideas, plans, and projects. Of course, that means I'm on an intensive learning curve. Hey, I've even managed to come up with a banner for PowerPOPP's feedburner.

The power and use of blogging continues among the young

Finding young bloggers is easy. The Blogosphere teems with them. Stumbling across those who take their writing seriously is not as common. At 14--when I met him online--Will Hoffacker's treatment of his blog, Youngest of One, as a way to explore his creativity and grow, as he has, into an emerging young writer grabbed my attention. I immediately linked to his blog and mentioned him in a post. On April 18, 2005 I interviewed Will in a series of posts. (Scroll down through April's posts to the 18th to find the beginning entry.)

As a writer I have loved watching how his blogging has evolved from a school project into a daily diary, then into a medium where he realized he had an audience and began to write accordingly. Today I remain impressed and inspired by Will's devotion to his blog and the constant exercise of his creativity through cartooning with The Angry Sugar Bowl, his other blogs and outlets, and now podcasts.

What inspired me to post about Will yet again? Well, I found myself at another blog, Think:lab, and a post in a series that discusses a recent interplay between this former teacher and a 16-year old blogger who had asked to be linked. From that innocent query came a six-part interaction dating from November 21, 2006 and a challenge detailed on Think:lab. The young blogger is Ethan Bodnar.

I confess Will never sought me out. I came across his site due to a link he had established on another writer-blogger's site. I read through his posts and enjoyed them. I remember one where he blogged about a school field trip to Philadelphia. Now, I spent many years in Philly and if you're from Philly you know how many times you had to check out the cracked Liberty Bell and follow in Ben's footsteps down the cobblestones and into the narrow homes of Betsy Ross and others. Forty years later, those early memories welled up as a result of Will's entry about his trip and his reactions to the same places. I laughed; I remembered. A few days later Will blogged about a school function and once more I found myself smiling. Something about Will's writing, his persona, his approach screamed "potential writer" so I put his link on my blog.

Watching his evolution as a blogger and a writer continues to be a lot of fun. My approach has simply been to recognize his potential, to call it out, and to provide encouragement. Aside from that, I love to read Will's blog, so I return regularly.

Bless him, the boy understands reciprocity. Without telling me, he bought my two teen novels. Not only that, he read them. He then graciously mentioned them during his daily posts and--thankfully--enjoyed them and recommended them. He didn't have to do that. At one point during the writing of a story, I asked him some questions and he provided some great tips. He even showed up during an online interview. The interplay between bloggers is one of the unique extras offered by blogosphere. It's so easy to initiate a conversation. Old barriers are blasted away. It's possible to communicate with people that, in the past, might have remained out of reach.

Last week Will's blog, like so many other blogs--mine included--offered thanks. In the midst of his litany I found the following:

I am thankful for my creativity (or, as some would say, my muse), which not only helps me but, as I see it, defines me. --Will Hoffacker, Youngest of One

What struck me? The fact that even now he recognizes and already acknowledges how his creativity defines him. How does your creativity define you?

Plan now: Make a book video and pull up to the Book Trailerpark

In the vein of if you can't beat 'em, join 'em, the book industry has finally embraced film with the introduction of the book video. "Book video?" you say? Yes. Now, in addition to coming up with a "high concept" idea, thinking cinematically in terms of story construction and visual appeal, and plotting to the beat of moviedom, authors might learn they're to "star" in book trailers and videos. Several companies are already on the move, such as Expanded Books:

ExpandedBooks, one of the more recently-founded book video production companies, focuses on author interviews, giving viewers a glimpse into the author’s process and ideas for writing a book.

“To us, a book video is a catch-all term that can be used to describe any one of numerous types of videos,” Skye Van Raalte-Herzog, producer of ExpandedBooks, told The Book Standard. “Specific book videos such as book trailers and viral videos portray an original, vivid and memorable introduction to the book, while book video interviews are more in-depth and offer a portrait of the book and the author. There are other types of book videos as well that portray dramatizations and others that closely resemble ads.” (Kimberly Maul, The Book Standard - 10/12/2006)

This year also saw the beginning of The Book Video Awards Competition held by The Book Standard. The good news is that so far there is an interest in safeguarding the reading experience:

"We try very hard to make VidLits different from movie trailers or television promotions,” Dubelman (Vid Lit, founder) said. “We never show a character unless the author does, because reading is a collaboration between the author’s imagination and the reader’s imagination. We wouldn’t want to take away from the magic of reading.” (Maul, The Book Standard - 10/12/2006)

Learn more from Kimberly Maul's Book Standard article, Book Videos: Where Did they Come From? and of course you'll want to visit the blog Book Trailerpark. So now do I put together a "book vid" for my teen novels...ideas anyone?

Books, blooks and blogs: Do you have a blook in you?

In the old days it was said that everyone had at least one book in them. Not today. Apparently the book has now been replaced by a blook--you just don't know it yet. Blooks are books from blogs. Now we have a new reason to answer the newly-eternal question: Why blog?

Recently Jeffrey Goldfarb reported on the new Blookers, "the world's first literary prize for books based on blogs." The trend has had sufficient growth to generate The Friday Project, a new firm dedicated to combing the Internet in search of blogs with book potential. Want to know more? Check out a blog, of course, that is dedicated to the award: Lulu Blooker Blog.

Meanwhile, authors, reconsider your blogging potential. Instead of blogging about the road to publication and the new-author journey hawking your book through the bookstores, think blook. What can you blog about that might lead to a blook?

And you thought e-books were the most recent writing fad. . . .

Video Magic and the expanding universe of blogging and the potential PR opportunities

The opportunities for friendship, exchanges of information, and synchronistic happenings are a few things that make having a blog a terrific experience. As I mentioned earlier, a fellow blogger, Will Hoffacker at Youngest of One, ordered my two teen novels when they came out, enjoyed the reads, sent me "fan" emails and posted positive reviews on his blog. While Will is at the top end of my targeted readership and my books deal with much more than the opening moments of a new teen romantic relationship, I had never considered sending him review copies of Divided Loyalties or Video Magic--clearly an error on my part. So the fact that he was a good enough online blogging buddy to order the books and read them on his own made receiving his positive emails and reviews all the more rewarding. It's also important to me because a local teacher who is developing school curriculum recently asked me if I thought the books would work in the classroom with both male and female students. I now have actual comments from a "real teen" to pass on.

The ever-expanding universe of blogging also promotes synchronistic moments such as the one I had yesterday. Serena, a co-worker, came in and told me she had seen a post on a site she frequents that provides recent blogging news/entries that talked about an author's response to a "fan letter" and how fan letters are a boost to bloggers, as well. She said she suddenly realized, "hey, I work with her" and clicked over to my blog from the link provided. She couldn't remember the site or the blogger but said she would let me know. (I had never discussed my blog and only casually mentioned my books to her--we work in a chain bookstore.)

When I got home last night I ran a Google-search on my name and found Wayne Hurlburt over at Blog Business World had written up a response to my blog entry. Not only had he posted, he inserted my photo and the cover of Divided Loyalties. As I was researching all this, my co-worker apparently had gone online, found the website and posted the link on my blog. This turned out to be Wayne's blog entry that now showed up, in full, on WebPRNews. The blogging relationship worked out like this:

A co-worker saw this article at WebPRNew when she visited WebProNews; which referenced this post on Wayne's Blog Business World; that refers back to my entry on my blog at Down the Writer's Path; which was the result of Will's blog post at Youngest of One.

Now, I don't know how many readers visit Youngest of One, Blog Business World, or WebPRNews, but I do know that my books and my blog now have a new opportunity reach new readers. I have to say once more: The blogosphere is an amazing place. And many thanks to Serena, Will, and Wayne for their generous support.
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Note: If you want to order my books but aren't into the e-book format, you can go to Booksurge or go to Amazon.com for the teen and the travel books.

MEME Me? Here's my MEME: FOUR THINGS.

Okay, leave it to Georganna over at the Writer's Edge on February 7th to tag me for MEME FOUR. So how, I ask you, did she know I finished a major project that's been consuming what extra time I have had since before Christmas? Scary, just plain scary. What, you may ask, is a "MEME?" Got me. But Wikpedia has a few words on the subject, and then there is this. The Reasoner has a more definitive explanation that relates to this one: MEME: FOUR THINGS. I don't usually do this sort of thing, but since it was Georganna . . . .

Four jobs I've had:
1. Community Relations Coordinator
2. Communications Director
3. Writer
4. Grocery checker

Four movies I can watch repeatedly
1. The Dead Poet's Society
2. Scent of a Woman
3. The Last of the Mohicans
4. Sphinx

Four places I have lived:
1. Germany
2. Virginia
3. New York
4. Texas x Two

Four TV shows I like to watch:
1. Law and Order
2. Project Runway
3. 24
4. Stargate (and Stargate Atlantis)

Four places I have been on vacation:
1. Florence, Italy
2. Roatan, Honduras
3. Milan, Italy
4. Sedona, AZ

Four favourite dishes:
1. Nachos, plain traditional style
2. Dark chocolate
3. Rare steak
4. Mashed potatos

Four websites I visit daily:
1. Down the Writer's Path
2. Blogcritics.org
3. Google Search
4. Amazon.com

Four places I would rather be right now:
1. Florence, Italy
2. Alaskan Cruise
3. Greece
4. Sedona

Four people to tag:
Will
Heather
Barbara
Mark

I wonder if anyone has started a literary meme?

Lee Goldberg, MJ Rose, Maud Newton, Bob Bly, David St. Lawrence and John Patrick continue to blog away

Lee Goldberg, a writer-for-hire for DIAGNOSIS MURDER and for MONK, is at it again with a little bit of dish and a whole lot of other interesting tidbits. One tip led me to Lynn Viehl's blog, The Paperback Writer, for an interesting post on writing for hire.

MJ Rose reports that blogger Mad Max Perkins has left the blogosphere. Over at Maud Newton's I found an interesting quote from Flaubert on the structure of a novel. Guess I've been caught in a dead calm. Bob Bly is still blogging and recently blogged about the effects of the Internet on writing and reading. Over at Ripples, David St. Lawrence opines about the future of blogging. And finally, John Patrick offers up an assessment of his recent publishing experience with his new book NET ATTITUDE. Which, I confess, surprises me a little. Patrick's main focus is technology. His site is not only informative, but his eclectic interests make for fun reading. Spend time doing a little blog-browsing.

The effect of blogging on the writing process and Zen in the Art of Writing

One of the beauties of blogging is the capability to take your reader directly to an online source, a piece of writing, or a current discussion. You also have the ability to provide your own commentary on the subject under discussion at the time you direct your reader, through comments on your own blog, or later in a follow-up post.

I bring this up today because of the great series of essays David St. Lawrence has written over at Ripples this week and I urge you to read them in their entirety. In a remarkable two-part essay Finding ourselves through blogging, David provides a thoughtful examination of how the act of blogging influences the lives of the bloggers and their readers and gives us a glimpse into the deep-seated psyche-related reasons as to the power of this new found, technology oriented form of writing. His analogy in part one of the Moravian star is delightful and thought-provoking. In part two, he deftly weaves in the many values of writing that are often applied to journaling but relates them to the contemporary use of blogs as the form of communication and expands this further with his views on the inherent nature of the blog to inform the blogger.

Not content with all that, his next blogging effort is the two-part essay You don't need permission to create. Here David digs deep and proves that he does, indeed, have a thoughtful, philosophical soul. Moving out of his usual domain of a work/business blog, he considers the creative aspect of blogging and writing in general to provide some good, common sense approaches to what is often a difficult discipline. Those of you who have read this blog for any length of time or who know me will quickly hear my own sentiments and writing dictums echoed in David St. Lawrence's well-wrought words.

In part one David arrives at the same place when it comes to advice for budding writers: "If you want to write, write every day for a few hours until you are good at it." The prolific and celebrated Ray Bradbury has one solid piece of advice for young writers: Do as I do, write a short story every day." When the then 80 year-old storyteller came to Houston several years ago and did a signing at the Borders store where I worked as the promotions and events person, I heard him repeat his mantra to each and every person who asked his advice as they gave him a book to sign. There is a reason why so many experienced writers say the same thing over and over and over. David's next sentence captures it quite nicely: "You will know when that happens, because people will start asking you how you do it or wanting you to write books."

In part two he goes on to expand on the many ways his blogging has impacted his writing and his ever-evolving view of himself as a blogger and how that guides him in shaping and shifting his blog to match his expanding sense of what he blogs about and why. This is exactly what happens to writers as they practice disciplined writing. They begin to understand their mind, their thoughts and views, and the ways in which they wish to promote and communicate these thoughts. In part they come to understand what forms or genres work best for them and how the stories, essays, or commentary can be fashioned to become more adept in expressing their views. Even in writing a simple story, a writer is expressing his view, his take on the subject and the world. It is that individuality of expression, that uniqueness, that the readers are seek in their reading. Some use shorthand and call it "voice."

If you're still not sure about this whole writing daily thing, consider this admonition of David's: "You must get yourself to the point where you can sit down and easily write 500 or 1000 words about anything that interests you."

If you can do that, you can sure maintain a blog. If you can do that much writing daily, you can easily follow Bradbury's dictum to write one story a day. Practicing a daily schedule of writing can lead you to that coveted writing-in-the-zone experience. It is the Zen in Writing. Opening up the creative flow is one of the most important things a fledging writer or, perhaps even more so, an experienced writer can do. Blogging can be one of the tools in your arsenal to help you define yourself as a writer. Take a look around the blogosphere and you'll find many bloggers expanding their horizons and honing their writing skills at the same time.

Here's a thought for the day from the ever-passionate Ray Bradbury in his essay The Joy of Writing found in Zen in the Art of Writing on how to enjoy first draft writing:

"Time enough to think and cut and rewrite tomorrow. But today--explode--fly apart--disintegrate!"

Bradbury's book should be required reading for all who aspire to write.

(If you you're planning to buy "Zen," consider clicking through here to Amazon as way to help support this blog, and don't forget to take the poll in the upper righthand column.)