Tag: Twitter

Truth About The Writer’s Million-Dollar Question

Lori Twining Leave a comment

This week a writing friend of mine, Colleen Winter, who is publishing her debut Sci-Fi Thriller novel, THE GATHERER in November 2019, sent me a text message:

HELP! I have a million-dollar question for you today. How is it that you give the appearance of being on social media a lot, but you say that you actually aren’t on very much? I’m trying to organize my life and could use some tips.

I chuckled, but understood the panic of trying to write a novel with a deadline, plus manage your social media accounts, plus be a mom, feed the kids, show up for your job in body, mind and in good spirit, shop for groceries, cook, eat, clean up… and the list goes on and on and on.

Here are some real truths that may or may not answer her million-dollar question:

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Old School Writer Catching Up With Digital Communication

Bernice Connell Leave a comment

Would Shakespeare approve of the world’s new digital communication?

I’m a wordie who, curiously, has never used the word before now. It’s a recent addition to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary along with sub-tweet, life-hack and casual approximations of speech such as hmm, ooh, and mm-hmm. All nods to our ever-evolving lexicon.

Deciphering Shakespeare’s early English vernacular in high school helped me see communication in a new way. He was a wordie as well, creating hundreds of words and often shortening others to suit his poetic writings. ‘Tis, oft and o’er are familiar shortened words while ope and gi may require a google check but the spelling is correct. Read more

How To Support an Author… Other Than Buying Their Books

Donna Judy Curtin Leave a comment

I came upon a Twitter thread where a frustrated author was venting. This author, who I might add, is already at least a decade ahead of my writing success because she has a published book that in my imagination has a stunning hard cover hugging her words. She was asked by an interested party, “So, how many books have you sold?”

My first thought was, ‘what an honour—to have a book to sell’ but the author was quite upset by the question and expressed how she felt the person had blatantly asked, “So, how much do you make?”, as if the curious person had requested to see her undergarments and T4.

The remuneration we receive for our work is intimately personal. We don’t actively speak about what we get paid in society and often times, the amounts don’t compute. Why does a home care provider, nourishing the future generation and tending to the family home, essentially get no pay, while others make millions buying and selling businesses?

How do you put a value on art? On someone’s creative ability to share a fearfully thrilling, heartwarming or life altering story? Read more

Branding Like a Boss

Lori Twining Leave a comment

This month, my writing group has taken an interest in developing their author websites and all I could think of while they were discussing this topic was… “Please don’t look at mine as an example.”

Why?

Because I’m one of those authors that still hasn’t decided on how to brand myself. You look at my landing page on my website and you will have no clue as to what I write. This is because I’m prone to genre-hopping. This allows me to write anything I want, whenever I want. I like to be in control. I don’t want to be known for only one thing. Yesterday, I worked on Literary Fiction and today I worked on a Suspense-Thriller novel. Who knows what I’ll work on tomorrow?

What’s wrong with that? Read more