Blog Chain: Research

It's blog chain time and I'm a day late, thanks to some procrastination on my part and Blogger deciding to quit working as soon as I sat down to post this last night. *shakes fist at Blogger*

Michelle M chose the topic this round. She asked:

There are so many things we have to include in our storyworlds...characters, world details, settings, etc. No matter what genre you write, your stories are full of tiny details that help create your storyworld. I know that for me, at least, finding or creating all these details can sometimes be a bit tough.

Where do you go for help? And what types of things are you more likely to research/search for as opposed to making up on your own? Do you have any favorite resource sites? Share links if you have them!!

Honestly, the only thing I can remember researching for my writing is the moon. And then I just googled something along the lines of “how far is the moon from earth” and “what are the names of the seas on the moon.” Really important stuff. ;)

And once I knew how far away the moon is (225,622 to 252,088 miles), I got curious about the other planets. I didn’t get much done on my writing that day, but I learned a lot about distances and the way the planets move around the sun and other stuff I don’t really need to know.

Oh, and I searched on Google to find out if that old belief about only using a small percentage of our brains is true. Which, from what I could find, it isn’t true, in case you were wondering. And that warranted a small change in my ms.

For the most part, I prefer to make stuff up, which is probably why I write science fiction with elements of fantasy. It’s much easier to come up with my own reality that way.

Most of my “research” is about grammar and punctuation. And for that I use Google. You all know that one, right? So I don’t need to include the link? ;)

What about you? Do you do a lot of research? Do you have any favorite resource sites?

Be sure to check out Christine’s post from Tuesday and Sandra’s post today. :)

Guest Post: Rebecca Knight and a Giveaway!

Welcome special guest, Rebecca Knight, author of LEGACY OF THE EMPRESS! She has a great post for us today and we're having a giveaway, so stick around. :)

Take it away, Rebecca!

Staying Motivated When The Odds Are Against You

A question that I get a lot is what keeps me motivated, or rather what keeps me pursuing my goals against such staggering odds. Writing is such an emotional pursuit, that it’s difficult not to get discouraged or even depressed when there is a bump in the road. We often worry about every little thing. Do we suck? Is it all for nothing? Every word we put on the page is personal, at least to some extent, and the idea of putting it out there where people can judge it or hate it is terrifying. Plus, even if you do put it out there, the odds aren’t good that you’ll ever be a success.

So, why do we do what we do?

For me, it’s a combination of things. First off, I’ve always had a deep belief in my ability to make things happen. If I want it, and there is a tiny chance that I can make it, I’m all in, working as hard as I can to be in that top percentile.

My family didn’t have a lot of money when I was growing up, so if I ever wanted to go to camp or do any special activities for school, I had to raise the money myself. I remember one year my school was taking a trip to Ashland, Oregon to attend the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. I was deeply into drama then, but the trip was over $200 and there was no fundraising set up by the school .

I decided that I was going to sell candy bars on my own to pay my way. My mom and I went to the store and loaded up on 50 cent candy bars, figuring I’d try to sell them for $1 each at school. Well, everyone is always selling candy bars for something, so pretty much everyone told me it was pointless to try to do it myself. “There’s candy in the vending machines for 75 cents!” my friend told me. “Why the hell would anyone buy from you?”

Well, I was just going to have to try harder and sell smarter than all the girlscouts and vending machines if I was going to succeed. I made two brightly colored signs and literally taped them to the front and back of my shirt each morning, advertising my $1 candy and describing the deliciousness of the bars I had. I asked everyone I talked to if they were in the mood for one, and had strangers approaching me because of the signs—people I’d seriously never spoken to before. I even wore the signs to my after school driver’s ed class and sold candy there to jocks who previously hadn’t spoken to me. I made it more convenient to talk to me than to walk down the hall to the vending machine.

I made to Ashland with money to spare and had an awesome time. If I want it, I work my butt off to make it happen. No excuses.

Secondly, it’s easier for me to stay motivated when I’m able to be agile. It’s so easy to think that there is only one way to do things or only one “right” path to meet your goal. Then, when that path hits a roadblock or you find that whatever you’re doing isn’t working out, what can you do? You’re stuck, and it can be a huge motivation drainer. What’s the point if you’re not able to do react?

When I thought that the traditional publishing route was the only way to have a writing career, I put all my time and energy into crafting the perfect query and doing things the “right” way. Then, when the recession hit and agents basically stopped taking on genre epic fantasy writers, I thought my only option was to wait for the market to change. So, I waited. I waited for an entire year, and basically took a break from the whole thing. It sucked to feel so out of control.

With the rise of indie publishing, though, I’m agile again, and it’s wonderful to have options. That’s all indie publishing is—an alternate path to meet your goals as a writer.

My sales recently slowed because of the summer season. Book sales are notoriously bad during the summer because folks are outside, going on roadtrips, etc, instead of reading. Because of this slow down, I’m trying something new and putting Legacy of the Empress up for .99 cents until Labor Day. I also released a new story so I’d have more writing out there in general. I have the ability to be flexible and experiment, and its incredibly empowering. I’ve already more than doubled my sales from last month, which just makes me want to write more and more and more J. Being able to roll with the punches is crucial.

A lot of this business is luck, but if you have the will to work as hard as necessary and are able to stay agile, you can make a lot of your own luck. And that is motivating as hell.

Good luck to all of you, and may you never lose sight of your goals J.

******

Rebecca's awesome ebook, LEGACY OF THE EMPRESS, is available for purchase from Amazon and Barnes and Noble, but she's giving away a copy to three lucky commenters!

To enter, just leave a comment on this post. Additional entries:
+1 Tweeting this post (button below) @abbyannis or @twoheadknight (one additional entry per day)
+1 Linking this post on Facebook (one additional entry per day)
Contest ends Sunday, July 10th, midnight PDT. Winners will be announced Monday, July 11th.

She's also having an awesome giveaway on her blog, including a $25 Amazon gift card. You still have a few days to enter. Don't miss it!

Word Tip Wednesday: Clipboard

Today's topic is pretty basic and I think most of us have had some experience with it. But I also think that most of us aren't aware of all the features of the Clipboard, so I thought I'd do a quick post about it. Well, hopefully it'll be quick. :)

The Clipboard menu is under the Home tab* (Figure 1).

Figure 1

The basics (or as I like to call them--The Essentials) are all there--Cut (Ctrl+x), Copy (Ctrl+c), Paste (Ctrl+v).

Format Painter is pretty cool too. Just highlight the text with the formatting you want to duplicate and click Format Painter . Your mouse cursor will turn into a tiny paintbrush. Use it to paint (select) the text you want to format and you're done. Simple, right?

You can view everything you have on your Clipboard (everything you've cut or copied) by clicking the tiny arrow in the bottom right corner of the Clipboard menu (Figure 2).

Figure 2

That will bring up this (Figure 3) on the left side of your screen.

Figure 3

This not only allows you to see everything you have on your Clipboard, but you can also select text you copied several copies back (by clicking on the arrow next to the text (Figure 3)) and paste it without copying it again. Or with this menu, you can delete text you no longer need from the Clipboard to free up space.

The Options menu at the bottom (Figure 3) allows you to change the way your Clipboard appears within Word.

Anyone else out there who can't live without these features? Anything to add? If you have any questions or need me to clarify anything, please let me know in the comments. :)

More Word tips posts here.

*Word 2007

Blog Chain: Cursed

This chain was started by Kate. She asked:

Curses, you've been cursed! You can write no longer. The story well has run dry, and you can't even remember how to type. Now what do you do? Where do you channel your creative energies? And to what lengths would you go to break the curse?

That is a cruel, cruel curse. Though some days I think it might be a blessing. I have my suspicions that writing actually kills the sane brain cells and causes the crazy ones to multiply. Rapidly. ;)

Now, it doesn't say anything about my desire to write disappearing, so I'd probably keep trying. I feel like I'm deluding myself most of the time anyway, so I don't know that it would really be that different.

But if my desire to write just faded away, I have plenty of discarded creative outlets to fall back on.

There's sewing, which I still do once in a while. Sometimes I need a break from writing. You know, to rebuild those sane brain cells.

This is my latest project, a camping quilt I made for my husband for Father's Day. Yes, this is totally a bragging photo. It turned out exactly as I wanted it to. :)

Or there's digital scrapbooking. Along that same line, I'd love to go back to school to learn graphic design and web design.

And someday I want to learn blacksmithing and welding and all kinds of metalworking so I can be the crazy lady with all the metal sculptures in her front yard. ;)

What about all of you? Where would you channel your creative energy if you couldn't write anymore?

Be sure to check out Margie's post from Friday, and Sandra's post tomorrow.

Goodbye to an Old Friend

Terk aka The Best Dog Ever, November 2001 - June 2011

Goodbye, buddy. We miss you already.