The Writers Network News, The Ten-Thousand-Hour Rule, September 2021
The Writers Network News, The Ten-Thousand-Hour Rule, September 2021
In This Issue
One: From the Editor's Desk: The Ten-Thousand-Hour Rule
Two: Ask the Book Doctor—Inside and Outside of Books
Three: Subjects of Interest to Writers
Four: Contests, Agents, and Markets
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The Writers Network News
No Rules; Just Write!
Editor: Bobbie Christmas
Contents copyright 2021, Bobbie Christmas
No portion of this newsletter can be used without permission; however, you may forward the newsletter in its entirety to fellow writers.
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https://www.zebraeditor.com/
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Some links in this newsletter may be shortened with help from www.tinyurl.com, a service that converts long links to short ones.
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Writer's Quote of the Month
"Words are the most powerful drug used by mankind." ―Joseph Rudyard Kipling
Joseph Rudyard Kipling was an English journalist, short-story writer, poet, and novelist born in India. India inspired much of his writing. Kipling's works of fiction include THE JUNGLE BOOK and many short stories, including "The Man Who Would Be King."
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ONE: From the Editor’s Desk—The Ten-Thousand-Hour Rule
Dear Fellow Writers:
Studies have shown that extraordinary achievers are not necessarily much smarter or more talented than others. Instead studies have resulted in what scientists call the “ten-thousand-hour rule.” According to studies, folks are unlikely to cognitively master such complex subjects as playing chess, being a neurosurgeon, or writing fiction unless they have practiced it for ten thousand hours. Yes, writing fiction is right up there with neurosurgery.
The ten-thousand-hour rule explains many things. It demystifies the reason why many authors have such difficulty selling their first novel. After they have written a second or third novel, however, authors have more experience and therefore their writing may interest an agent or publisher. I’ve often said our first novel is for practice.
The same ten-thousand-hour rule explains why we writers often find ourselves embarrassed when we read something we wrote ten years earlier and see how amateurish it was. We’ve improved our skills through exercising them.
We writers must never get frustrated and give up. We have to keep going if we want to gain the expertise we need. We need to attend seminars and read books, magazines, and articles about writing. We need to talk to other writers, read the work of other writers, learn to critique other writings, and write, write, write. We learn even more when we pay a professional editor to evaluate our work. We must do all we can to keep improving.
Studies showed that it doesn’t matter if you start practicing your passion when you’re twenty or fifty. Age doesn’t matter; what matters is how many hours you put into the practice to achieve your goal. Who cares if it takes you five or more years to become a great writer? Like trying to get pregnant, the practice can be just as much fun as achieving success.
Have you noticed how your writing improves the more you practice? Share your stories with me, and I’ll share them with our readers.
Yours in writing,
Bobbie Christmas Bobbie@zebraeditor.com or bzebra@aol.com
Author of two editions of WRITE IN STYLE, owner of Zebra Communications, director of The Writers Network, coordinator of the Florida Writers Association Editors Helping Writers service, and senior editor of Enjoy Cherokee Magazine
If someone forwarded this newsletter to you, please sign up to get your own subscription. Simply go to ZebraEditor.com/ to subscribe to The Writers Network News. My promise: I never share your address or send out spam.
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TWO: Ask the Book Doctor—Inside and Outside of Books
By Bobbie Christmas
Q: Are author photos and biographies essential to have on your books? Would I be making a mistake if my back cover had only my blurb?
A: The back cover is the strongest sales piece for a book. Everything on the back cover should make people want to buy the book. The back cover should contain a powerful, interesting blurb regarding the content of the book or novel. Your bio, however, is important only if your book is nonfiction and you are an expert in your subject. Your bio may be insignificant on novels unless you become famous and people want to know more about you.
A snapshot, however, may have significance in a few cases. For example if the book is about living with a handicap, a photograph may reveal the author’s physical handicap. Otherwise, the author’s picture isn’t essential, but be aware that the human eye is naturally drawn to photographs, especially pictures of people, and anything that draws the eye of a potential buyer is a good thing. If you prefer not to use your photograph, though, I doubt anyone would even notice that it was missing.
Q: What’s the best way to avoid getting sued for something I put into my book?
A: Ask your questions of an attorney familiar with intellectual property. A good place to start looking for such an attorney is through the Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts, which has chapters in many states.
Q: Should novels have a happy ending? I'm writing teen fiction and can't decide if my main character should end up with someone or not.
A: While specific genres may have requirements regarding how a story should end, it’s my opinion that if every novel had a happy ending, we would have no reason to read books. I prefer to be surprised by the ending, happy or not.
Without reading your book I can’t tell if the ending works. Teen fiction, however, focuses more on feelings, inner struggles, and relationships than on plot. The guidelines don’t have a requirement of how the novel should end.
All novels do have to have some things, though. They must have believable characters, natural dialogue, a plot that carries from beginning to end, and resolution—whether happy or not. It also must be edited and devoid of errors in grammar, punctuation, word choice, noncompliance with Chicago style, and more.
Q: When should I name my novel?
A: The answer to this question varies. I recommend giving the book a working title, but recognize that the title might change. One-word titles aren’t usually as strong as titles that have allure or intrigue, but a one-word label at least gives your file a name while you wait to determine the final title.
Years ago I worked with a client whose novel had a one-word title—a label, rather than a title—but while editing the manuscript I saw a line that intrigued me, something a child said. I recommended using a portion of that child’s chant, and it made a captivating title.
My own nonfiction book about creative writing had the working title of Rev Up Your Writing and Win. I thought the title was fine, but when I sold the book to a publisher, the publisher explained that it also had an imprint that specialized in gaming books and didn’t want a book that wasn’t a gaming book to have the word “win” in the title. We settled on the new name, Write In Style. While I didn’t love the new title, I loved that a traditional publisher bought the book, paid me an advance against royalties, and paid all the costs of publishing and distribution. The publisher got my book into libraries and bookstores across America and Australia, something I could not have done on my own, so I was willing to compromise on the title.
After you finish your book perhaps your editor, beta readers, or publisher will make suggestions for the title, if you can’t come up with one that hooks readers. You never know when that title will appear or where may come from it. The working title is unimportant as long as you pick a strong title before the book goes to press.
Bobbie Christmas is a book editor, author of Write In Style: Use Your Computer to Improve Your Writing, and owner of Zebra Communications. She will answer your questions too. Send them to Bobbie@zebraeditor.com or BZebra@aol.com. Read Bobbie’s Zebra Communications blog at ZebraEditor.com/blog/.
For much more information on these subjects and hundreds of others of vital importance to writers, order PURGE YOUR PROSE OF PROBLEMS, a Book Doctor’s Desk Reference Book at http://tinyurl.com/4ptjnr.
Bobbie Christmas’s award-winning second edition of WRITE IN STYLE: How to Use Your Computer to Improve Your Writing is available from Amazon at tinyurl.com/y7ppcdkd or buy it directly from me at tinyurl.com/y7p9xkbb.
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THREE: Of Interest to Writers
Editing Tip: Juxtaposition
What is juxtaposition, and what happens when it goes wrong?
Juxtaposition refers to the act or an instance of placing two or more things side by side, often to compare or contrast or to create an interesting effect. For that reason, related elements must be close together and in the correct order, to avoid awkward, unclear, or misleading sentences.
I spotted the following sentence in a manuscript I recently edited: “The cottage was cozy, with a fireplace that warmed early fall nights and covered porches that provided shelter for sitting and listening to falling rain.”
Did you catch the problem? On first read it appears that the fireplace warmed both the fall nights and the covered porches. To understand the sentence correctly the reader must go back and reread to see that it was supposed to say that the cottage had a fireplace as well as porches that had covers. The fireplace didn’t warm the porches at all. Writers must never make readers back up and reread anything to understand it. I would rearrange the passage for clarity, perhaps this way: “The cottage was cozy, with a fireplace that warmed early fall nights. It also had covered porches that provided shelter for sitting and listening to falling rain.” How would you recast it?
Related elements must be close together and in the correct order, to avoid awkward, unclear, or misleading sentences. Unrelated elements should not be tied together.
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Bobbie’s Blog
For creative writing tips and some personal experiences, access the Write In Style blog here: https://www.zebraeditor.com/blog/
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Genre Guidelines
Does your novel comply with the genre guidelines? Read more about these guidelines in this article from Books & Such: https://www.booksandsuch.com/blog/the-rules-of-genre/
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Authors Guild Warns of Scams
A scam outfit by the name of Silver Ink Literary agency is emailing authors to solicit book proposals for publication with major publishers. The scammers are using the Authors Guild’s logo on their letterhead as well as logos of leading publishers to solicit book proposals. It is charging authors up to $6,000. This is a scam. Do not correspond with the sender. The Authors Guild is taking legal action against the scammers. If you or someone you know have received this email, please contact the Authors Guild immediately at staff@authorsguild.org.
The Authors Guild also warns that Truman Publishing is aggressively marketing its services to authors. It charges for publishing services. Its website supposedly lists several fake addresses and has other inconsistencies, and the guild suspects that the outfit is a scam.
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CMOS Online Q & A
This month someone posed the following question to The Chicago Manual of Style Online:
Q: I work with many first-time authors, and many of them want to argue about commas. Of course as author, they have the final decision of their own work . . . but I keep running into the idea of breath: “My high school English teacher taught me that commas go where you want to take a breath, so that’s why this comma should be here.” What would you say to these authors?
To get the answer to this question and many more based on Chicago style, go to http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/qanda/latest.html.
THE CHICAGO MANUAL OF STYLE sets the standard in book publishing for issues such as punctuation, capitalization, and much more. If you write fiction or nonfiction books, you will want to know about Chicago style or be sure to use a professional book editor intimately familiar with Chicago style.
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Need Help Paraphrasing?
I haven’t checked this website out or tried its services, but it claims to offer a highly sophisticated paraphrasing tool. Wordtune https://www.wordtune.com
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Mind Wandering? Good for you!
The Washington Post recently ran an article about daydreaming. Among other things it said that mind-wandering is of course problematic when focus is essential, like if you’re driving or performing surgery. But it goes on to say that if you let your mind wander when you’re doing mundane tasks that don’t require focus—knitting or shelling peas, for example—it can help you feel content. “Science suggests it may also help you come up with creative ideas,” the article says.
“Anecdotally, mind-wandering has been associated with creativity for centuries. A study published this year by the University of Calgary’s Julia Kam and her colleagues suggests the link between mind-wandering and creativity depends on which kind of mind-wandering you do.” Researchers found that freely moving thoughts were associated with increased alpha waves in the brain’s frontal cortex, which is associated with performing better on creative tasks. “When our brains are generating ideas, it’s helpful to drift in many directions and not be constrained, which freely moving thought allows.”
Read the full article here: https://tinyurl.com/wvbxxa5b
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WRITE IN STYLE: How to Use Your Computer to Improve Your Writing
WRITE IN STYLE teaches writers how to strengthen their writing style and create a fresh voice, one that publishers and readers want to read.
Order your copy today at https://tinyurl.com/y8fp5nym.
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FOUR: Contests, Agents, and Markets
Go international with your short stories and poetry by submitting to the publications below.
Southward
Ireland
This literary journal published in Ireland twice a year wants your poetry and short stories. Now is the time to prepare for the submission periods.
Submit poetry December 1, 2021 ‒ February 28, 2022
Submit fiction January 1, 2022 ‒ March 31, 2022
We cannot consider anything that has been previously published or accepted for publication anywhere, in any form. Work that has appeared online is considered to have been previously published and should not be submitted.
Payment is made on publication. For unsolicited work we will be paying €40 per poem and €250 per short story published in our new print editions. Payments to contributors outside Ireland can be made only through PayPal. All contributors also receive a complimentary copy of the issue they appear in.
We now use Submittable for you to send us your work. It will securely send our editors your work and email you a confirmation that it has been received. If you do not already have a Submittable account, your account will be set up during your first submission. There is no need to create an account beforehand. Fiction and Poetry must be submitted separately. In a submission period we like to see no more than one story/four poems. There is an upper limit of 5,000 words for short stories and a suggested limit of forty lines per poem. Once you have submitted your work, you can check the status of your submission by signing into your Submittable account. https://southword.submittable.com/submit/
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Andromeda Spaceways Magazine
Australia
Australia’s home of awesome speculative fiction is looking for engaging stories that pull us in from the start and tell a great tale.
We accept anything considered speculative fiction. This includes science fiction, fantasy, and horror, and any sub-genres that fall into these categories.
Word Count
Subscribers and Australian/New Zealand authors: up to 20,000 words.
Non-subscribers and non-AU/NZ authors: up to 10,000 words.
Manuscript Formatting
Please submit using Modern Short Story Manuscript Format, but remove all personal information from your manuscript (i.e., please remove your name, byline, postal address, phone number, and email address from the title page and all headers). We use an anonymous submission system to give all authors a fair chance at publication. Please only submit your manuscript as an RTF file. This ensures all our staff can access your story.
Payment
1 cent per word (AUD) with an AUD$20 minimum and an AUD$100 maximum per piece. For flash fiction (under 1,000 words), we pay AUD$10 per piece.*
Every contributor also receives an electronic copy of the issue in which their item appears, whether it’s fiction, poetry, non-fiction, or artwork.
Notes
We prefer Australian English spelling (-ise instead of ize, for example).
We do not accept simultaneous submissions or multiple submissions. This means only one story per author until we have responded with a decision to hold or reject your story.
We do not accept serialised submissions, so please don’t ask.
Andromeda Spaceways is intended for a wide audience, so we don’t want anything more than M-rated: no gratuitous sex or violence.
See https://andromedaspaceways.com/submissions-manager/
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Herizons
Canada
http://www.herizons.ca/
Herizons aims to reflect a feminist philosophy that is diverse and relevant to women's daily lives. The purpose of Herizons is to empower women; to inspire hope and foster a state of wellness that enriches women's lives; to build awareness of issues as they affect women; to foster a spirit of cooperation; to promote the strength, wisdom, and creativity of women; to broaden the boundaries of feminism to include building coalitions and support among other marginalized peoples; to foster peace and ecological awareness and to expand the influence of feminist principles in the world. Herizons is a nonprofit organization based in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.
Herizons publishes articles about examining feminist principles at work, in relationships, in organizations and institutions, and in politics and social justice causes are welcome. Our readers are interested in health issues, social and political issues, environmental issues, equality issues, justice issues, spiritual issues; parenting issues and all issues informed by diverse racial and cultural experiences. Articles in which the writer is engaged with the material work best; personal experiences, journalism style articles, interviews, articles that bring in current research and a clear feminist perspective are all things we look for.
NEWS
500 - 700 words. News items of interest to feminist readers that are taking place in communities across Canada. $175-$210.
FEATURES
1,000 - 3,000 In depth articles on feminist debates, current social/ political/legal/environmental/culture emerging issues or personal stories with a broader social relevance. Can be interview style, essay style or journalism style. Nonacademic. $275-550.
REVIEWS
325-words book, music, and film reviews; preference is given to Canadian authors, filmmakers, musicians. $75
Payment is made in Canadian funds upon publication. Articles in Herizons are licensed for first time North American rights @ .25 cents per word with an additional .03 cents per word for non-exclusive subsidiary rights, including the right to transfer articles to CD rom for educational/academic libraries and/or secure on-line database services. Herizons reserves the right to post select articles on Herizons’ web site.
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The Writers Network News: a newsletter for writers everywhere. No Rules; Just Write!
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