Reminder - WITS NoWriMo

Don't forget!

March is just around the corner and so is the WITS Novel Writing Month. If you are a WITS member and would like to participate, please send an email to witsnq@gmail.com so that we can keep you up to date on group writing sessions, send you helpful information and so that we can assign you a nifty little widget like the one below to help keep you on track.










Remember, March is for researching not for writing, so keep an eye on the blog this month for tips on plotting and how to research your novel. The progress-o-metre widgets will go up on the blog on April 1st.

Celebrating our Successes - February 2009

• Congratulations to Casey Salt, Stephen Ryan, Nikesh Murali, Kerry Ashwin, Lori & Peter Hurst. Their collaborative project T'ville has been completed and is available for download.
• Kerry Ashwin's podcast all Free today has been selected as a highlight on the ABC's Letter Vox. Kerry also featured on the Radio National BookShow on the 23rd of Feb and her photo was used at Pool for one of their stories for the BookShow.
• Dr Mary Casolin has received the proof for her second volume of poems Safron Sunset and will be expecting the finished published version any day now.

Remember, if you would like to see your name in our monthly Peacock Awards, send some information about your accomplishment to witsnq@gmail.com

e-Books and self-promotion

With the recent release of T'ville as an electronic download, it's perhaps timely to look at how you as the author can increase the number of people reading - and buying! - your e-Book.

Back in January, The Shack listed a link to an article on the blog The Urban Elitist called How to get your e-Book read. This article has a whole heap of great pointers including:

• Create compelling advertisements - put something on YouTube that people will want to watch for its own sake
• Use merchandise like a musician - iPhone / iPod covers, hats, buttons, whatever. Give a free t-shirt to everyone who buys your e-Book!
• Get a great cover design - readers will always judge a book by its cover
• Make the first sentence a great one - when a potential buyer can get to the first page with a single click of their mouse, you better make sure what they read is good

The Writers Guide argues that having an online presence is one of the most important methods of marketing and promotion for writers - both e-Books and traditional print - in the digital age. Chapter 7 is an excellent starting point for learning how to optimise sales through the use of social media, banner ads, virtual launches and tours, trailers and more. This chapter also gives some links to organisations that offer professional development opportunities in digital marketing and distribution.

For many more great online resources for digital marketing, see The Writers Guide marketing_howto bookmarks on delicious.

Flash Me!

Flash Me Magazine is a quarterly publication available online for free or as a PDF for a small fee. They are a paying market and accept all genres of fiction under 1,000 words. They are currently looking for more sci-fi, fantasy and humour submissions and will be publishing an all-fantasy issue in October.

For more information go to: http://www.wingedhalo.com/fig.html

A Dog's Life

Pavlov, can you do something about your mongrel.

Look at the mess!

Slobber everywhere

and the bells,

tinkle tinkle,

tinkle tinkle.

day and night.

What is it with you?

Nothing better to do?

Pavlov,

get a life,

and Pavlov, can you please do something about your mongrel.

By Phil Heang

Land it like Sully

Here’s another online dictionary to check out.

Urban Dictionary is a dictionary of slang, and is very up-to-the –minute. It could be helpful for those writing contemporary fiction (especially YA).

Check out this example:

Land It In The Hudson
An expression used to encourage yourself or someone else when it appears an endeavour is headed for a disastrous outcome (due mostly to external conditions).
Based on when Sully averted tragedy by successfully landing US Airways Flight 1549 in the Hudson River. See also, "Land it like Sully."
The company is on the brink of failure, so let's Land it in the Hudson.

You can subscribe to the dictionary and get a ‘free new word’ each day, delivered to your inbox.

Shallow

You skim across the surface
Your words flitting like pebbles
Flat blunt stones
Cast forward

Such meaningless statements
You pelt dull descriptions
Obvious prescriptions
Stating the obvious
You say everything
Regurgitate
Recapitulate
... everything

Yes even the dynamic
... the complex ... the magical
Reduced

Sketching human patterns with the blandest brush
A jaded palate
The broadest strokes
Skimming over details
Like flippant pebbles
Minus the ripples
For your words leave no mark

Left to your simplicity
Your rights and wrongs, light and dark
Them and us, me and you
I envy your peace of mind
Your lack of fitful dreams
Yet you leave a bitter taste,
Your ignorant bliss obscene

I walk away, descend within
Leave you skipping pebbles
Shallow presence by a stream

By Imbi Johnston

Twixt and between

In sharp shine of sunlight on leaf
and in deep dark pooling of shadow
somewhere twixt and between
there is movement
there is dance

in silver-winged flash of red damsel fly
and twirl and slash of flick-tailed fish
somewhere twixt and between
god hovers at vision’s edge

somewhere twixt and between
god waits

by Lynn Scott-Cumming 2009

Brain Harvest

Brain Harvest: An Almanac of Bad-Ass Speculative Fiction is a new publication that will begin on March 1, 2009. It will be published on the web and on mobile devices i.e. iPhone and Blackberry.

Rates are 5 cents a word for stories 100-750 words. Submissions open on February 15, 2009. The editor advises not to submit before then, as everything dated before this will be deleted.

Go to http://www.brainharvestmag.com/submit for more information.

Embers

From the Smallest Embers Rise the Beasts of Fire Like the Phoenix
And the hot ashes from their flapping wings fall on snow-white clouds and plunge the earth into darkness.

From the smallest embers I drew fire to trace your form on the forest floor
And now walls of flame race through the landscape of twigs and thorns

In the roar of this great fire, I hear the laughter of that single ember.

By Nikesh Murali