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Are you using a thesaurus correctly? And is this irony?

179909_620791327948192_959396268_nSometimes I wonder about the universe and how it will sync random events to make a point, teach us something, or just plain laugh at us.

Case in point

Yesterday, a fellow writer posted this some-ecard with the quote from Stephen King on Facebook and I wrote the following comment:

I don’t know– I think there’s an exception–if you’re only using words you find in there that you already know well and have just forgotten it, and so you’re like “oh, yes, that’s a good one.” Problem is when people use it to use words they don’t know and so potentially use it in the wrong context or it has a shade of meaning they are unfamiliar with. Or are just trying to use ‘impressive’ words. I sometimes (I’m of a certain age) find that I also forget nice simple words too.

And then I proceed to fire up the old Kindle to read a new book that should be right up my alley–a quirky, nerdy heroine stumbling toward love. It was recommended by another writer in a blog post as a refreshing, new voice and I just had to check it out. It started out great (voice, check), and I do really like the quirky, nerdy heroine (check), but soon I started cringing.

The problem?

The writer is using a vocabulary wider than her own. It clearly suffers from thesaurusitis and while the heroine is supposed to be über smart and nerdy, and so it would seem to be appropriate for the heroine to have a great vocabulary and use big words, the problem is, the writer doesn’t have the same vocabulary as the heroine she’s trying to write and so is using words that she thinks portrays the synonym for the word she looked up, but the shade of meaning or context is completely wrong. Making for some unintentional funny moments. Frankly, it’s spoiled the book for me, though I’m still going to continue reading it today just because I do like the heroine and her situation. But I won’t be recommending it to anyone. My co-worker asked if it was supposed to be intentional, but I don’t think so–this character isn’t being portrayed as someone who thinks she’s smart and using words in the wrong context to provide hilarity, she’s actually supposed to be smart.

And is this irony or just Alanis Morissette irony?

I hate to admit this, but I struggle with whether something is true irony, so help a girl out. Is the fact that I wrote that comment on Facebook saying there is an exception and then on the same day I start a book that illustrates the other half of my comment:

Problem is when people use it to use words they don’t know and so potentially use it in the wrong context or it has a shade of meaning they are unfamiliar with.

Is that true irony? Because I rarely read a book that suffers from thesaurusitis and it was kinda freaky for me to start one on the same day that did.

Do you agree with Stephen King re: thesaurus usage? Or, do you use one? And if so, how?

Tweetables:

  • Today @AngelaQuarles asks: Are you using a thesaurus correctly? And is this irony? click to tweet
  • Is a thesaurus useful or do you agree with Stephen King that a writer should never use it?  @angelaquarles click to tweet
24 Comments
by Angela Quarles on May 15, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in Writer Wednesday, Writing
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Posted by Angela Quarles on May 15, 2013

http://angelaquarles.com/2013/05/15/are-you-using-a-thesaurus-correctly-and-is-this-irony/

My Thoughts on the New Golden Heart Scoring System

gnlclbjq (1)

The scores for Romance Writer’s of America’s (RWA) unpublished manuscript contest, The Golden Heart, have been sent and there’s already some discussion on loops about what the scores mean and whether it’s working.

First, some background. The Golden Heart’s mission from RWA’s website is to:

…promote excellence in the romance genre by recognizing outstanding romance manuscripts

This is a coveted contest final in the Romance world. After finalists are announced, agents regularly give automatic requests for fulls to them. At the national conference, the finalists are announced and winner awarded during the final gala night in an Oscars-like setting.

This is the first year a new scoring system has been used. In the past, the judge gave one overall score based on how they viewed it. There’s been criticism in the past that this wasn’t based on any specific criteria. This year, judges were asked to break down their score into the following categories:

Romance (1-20)
Writing (1-10)
Characters (1-10)
The Story/Plot (1-10)

For a total score of 50.

On the loops I belong to, writers are asking what it means when they get a wide range. Some have said it’s as varied as 11 (as a total score!) to 48, for the same manuscript, and others are reporting the same wide range. I’ve also seen some writers say they received a 1 or a 5 for their Writing category. In the instance of one of the ones who got a 5, I actually Beta read that manuscript and their writing (which should be based on the craft, i.e. grammar, command of language, etc) was not 5, IMO.

It’s a true adage, that in contest feedback, large swings in opinion can mean that you have a strong voice and so you’re alienating some folks who just hate your voice.

Golden Heart this year has taken care of some of the unfairness in these large swings by dropping the lowest AND the highest score, but I’m wondering if there’s more to it than this. I judged entries this year and here’s my thoughts:

There was no grading scale given to help orientate the judge on what a 1 as opposed to a 5 or a 10 means (other than that 1 was on the low end, and 10 was a perfect score). Lacking this, I made one up for myself by taking the grading scales used in local chapter contests. So when I judged the entries, this was the criteria I used by taking the 1-5 scale used in local contests and extrapolating it out to:

9-10 Ready to Publish, no changes needed.
7-8 Almost there.
5-6 Several minor problems.
3-4 This area could be strengthened with some significant rework.
1-2 Major problems in this area.

And for the Romance category, I used this:

17-20 Ready to Publish, no changes needed.
13-16 Almost there.
9-12 Several minor problems.
5-8 This area could be strengthened with some significant rework.
1-4 Major problems in this area.

And so I gave my scores accordingly. But do you see the problem here? I did this on my own. Who knows whether this is what the coordinators had in mind? Who knows what other judges used to assign their numbers?

In many local contests that use a scale, they give what the judge should look for in each category. Perhaps a way to improve this would be to give some kind of scale guideline for each category in order to take out this part of the subjective equation. Because yes, every judges opinion is subjective, but how to use the numbering system shouldn’t be subjective.

Also, some folks had high scores in all categories except romance, with their romance number being 7s and 8s, consistent with what they were getting in the other categories. So, it makes one wonder if the judge didn’t realize the scale went up to 20?

I also had an interesting phenomenon happen. I had one entry I judged that I thought was so great, I gave it a perfect score (the only one I gave). The writing was great–sharp writing, sizzling sexual tension (I was literally squirming) and the synopsis was well done in that the plot was crystal clear, plausible and the character’s goals and motivations were all clear and made sense (it was the only one that did). I was surprised it didn’t final and then I saw that it was published, so it must’ve been disqualified. Anyway, I bought it, so I could read it, and the story completely did NOT hold up. The prose was still technically flawless, but man, for the Black moment/final climax, it totally hinged on the character doing something completely out of character as it was written (but which in the synopsis made it sound like it was totally their character) and also the characters never really got fleshed out past cardboard cutouts to serve the plot. Just goes to show how only reading first 50 and a synopsis truly do not help pick the best. Jami Gold’s post yesterday touches on this in her post “Why Is Storytelling Ability So Important?” based on judging a recent contest.

So here’s some thoughts I have on how the contest could be improved for the future:

  • Give a scale on what each number means for each category
  • If Romance will still count double, perhaps double the score after the scores are turned in. I’m sorry, but there’s some people who just don’t pay attention. How many folks missed out on finaling because they were unlucky enough to get more than one judge who didn’t look close enough to see the scores went to 20 in this one category only?
  • Unfortunately, I think asking to read a full will be too much work, so fixing the instance I found where the problems exploded only once the full was read probably can’t be addressed. RWA had a hard enough time getting enough judges this past year

What do you think? I see this as a place to discuss the new scoring system and whether it worked or didn’t. Is it an improvement on the old system? Do you have some suggestions on how it could be improved for next year?

19 Comments
by Angela Quarles on May 1, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in Writer Wednesday, Writing
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Posted by Angela Quarles on May 1, 2013

http://angelaquarles.com/2013/05/01/my-thoughts-on-the-new-golden-heart-scoring-system/

Are You an Obsessive Series Reader?

If you read and enjoyed Book One of a series, do you then have to read all of the rest? I just finished reading all eleven books in JR Ward’s Black Dagger Brotherhood series–I started on March 29, and chewed through all of them by this past Saturday.

As I step out of this Ward fog, life is still going on around me. And I’m kind of relieved actually. I really have other things I need to be reading, but more importantly–doing. Because when I get my teeth on a series like this, I’m reading when I don’t normally read. Barring something unusual going on, I read every day, but within certain time allotments. But this past month, I was reading in the mornings on weekends, or coming home from work and reading, when I should be concentrating on writing or revisions.

But I also miss the Brothers! I love getting immersed in a world like that, with an author who delivers. I’m not usually someone who tears up reading romances, but man, the emotional rollercoasters she executed were quite something, and more than once had the ol’ tear ducts working. I think my favorites were V and Z stories, and my heart just broke for Qhuinn. And Lover At Last was my first M/M Romance. I think my least fave was Phury’s, which was disappointing because I was really looking forward to his.

Reading them also had a side benefit–they were a great lesson in Deep POV writing. If you’ve been wanting to see Deep POV in action and don’t mind walking on the dark side for your romance, you can’t go wrong reading these.

What about you? Do you chew through a series that grabs you to the exclusion of other things you should be doing? Have you read the BDB series? Which were your faves?

11 Comments
by Angela Quarles on April 29, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in Book Monday, Books, Deep POV, Writing
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Posted by Angela Quarles on April 29, 2013

http://angelaquarles.com/2013/04/29/are-you-an-obsessive-series-reader/

Agent Pitch Prep Tip: Make Dossiers

agent_megibowConference seasons is here again! Some of you may be headed to the RT Convention coming up shortly and participating in their Pitch-a-Palooza, or taking advantage of the pitch appointments at the RWA conference, or those at regional conferences. Whichever you’re doing, it’s best to be prepared. I’ve now pitched seven times at three different conferences and I thought I’d share one of my tips: Make a dossier on each agent!

This serves several purposes:

  • Ensures you’ve researched the agent
  • Helps you get to know them a little before you meet them
  • Helps make you feel like you’re prepared
  • Provides you with info to help break the ice
  • Gives you something to review quickly while you’re waiting for the appointment to start

This last is super-important if you’re pitching to more than one. You can quickly review and remind yourself that yep, this is the one that likes The Hobbit, or this is the one that loves dorky heroes. Whatever it is that you have in common that will help cement that agent in your mind before you go in.

Things to include:

  • Photo
  • Agent Name (Duh)
  • Name of Agency
  • Location of their office
  • Who their agency represents (only list those authors you know or are familiar with)
  • Who they represent (again, just the ones you’re familiar with)
  • Books they like (Obviously only ones that you like too or that might be comps for your work)
  • Other Items of Note (anything else about what they’re looking for, personality quirks you have in common, anything else that’s relevant to your project. I knew one agent hated having pitches that started with the author handing her a business card, so I made sure to note that)

Things I didn’t list, but that could be good to add:

  • Questions to ask
  • Possible icebreaker topics

I took these sheets and made a folder with each one, complete with a label printed for the tab.

agent_kye_casella

What if you don’t find much?

Some agents keep a low profile on the web (like mine!). But still it helps to put whatever you can find. To the right is all I could glean on my agent before I pitched to her. But it really helped to review this and know what she looked like. Be careful what you do find on the web–QueryTracker accidentally had Vicky Dreiling listed as being represented by her and it turned out that was incorrect. Double-check what you find with another source.

Anyway, I think my ice-breaker was going to be about her looking for quirky characters, but it turned out I didn’t need one. We were interrupted right when I sat down because I’d dropped my little stuffed Yoda that I had attached to my conference bag as a mascot and quick way to identify it amongst other bags. We had a laugh over it and she said “I love Yoda!” and off we went.

After the pitch

Afterward, I wrote down what they wanted on the sheet and their contact info. If they gave me a business card, I attached it. It also came in handy to keep any relevant info that transpired afterward in that folder or written on the sheet (like date partial full sent, reply, etc).

What about you? Have you used something like this and did you find it helpful? If you haven’t, would doing this help you? Can you think of other things to add that might be good to keep track of?

4 Comments
by Angela Quarles on April 24, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in Writer Wednesday, Writing
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Posted by Angela Quarles on April 24, 2013

http://angelaquarles.com/2013/04/24/agent-pitch-prep-tip-make-dossiers/

Melding the Enneagram with Brooks’ 3 Dimensions of Character

E-TypesNameI’ve been meaning to pen this post for a while, and Jami Gold’s post from yesterday, How to Use Character Flaws to Develop a Plot, spurred me on. In her post, she talks about using either the Myers-Briggs or the Enneagram to help with finding character flaws, and syncing them with Michael Hauge’s Six Stage Plot Development.  Definitely scoot over there and read it–I’ll wait ;)

Back? Cool, huh? Can you see why we’re Beta buddies? We’re both plot nerds :) I haven’t studied Hauge’s techniques, but I definitely will now. Another one I really like is Larry Brooks’ Story Engineering: Mastering the 6 Core Competencies of Successful Writing. It’s a must-buy, I think, but one of the aspects he covered that really stuck with me was his talking about the three dimensions of character. He says that all characters, like people in real life, have three dimensions, or aspects.

  1. First Dimension – Surface traits, quirks, and habits. These are things the world sees about this person, which may or may not be what the person thinks it says about them. It’s the person’s outward identity. In fiction, a writer can show aspects of a person’s character (what they drive, what they eat, etc) and a reader may or may not assign meaning to it. The reason it’s not good as a writer to stop here for main characters is that illuminating a character’s first dimension does not tell us his true self; it could all be a smoke screen.  If, however, as a writer, you show the meaning behind these outward traits, you’ve now crossed into the
  2. Second Dimension – The realm of backstory and inner demons.  In this dimension, the writer gives the backstory, agenda and/or meaning behind the surface traits, and what the reader assumed might be totally different. It adds depth to the character. It’s their inner landscape. It’s all the juicy backstory stuff that prompts, explains, and motivates the character’s first dimension choices of identity. First dimension is what you see– a guy with a tattoo. Second dimension is why he has that tattoo. Illuminating the second dimension creates reader empathy.
  3. Third Dimension – Where the true character emerges through choices made when something is at stake. Basically, when push comes to shove, just who is this guy? The true character is not defined by their inner demons and/or backstory until the character does something under pressure, which exposes who they truly are (good or bad). Usually in fiction, this decision comes at the end to show the character’s arc. It’s what shows the character as a villain or hero. A villain will continue to define himself by his backstory, while a hero will overcome it.

Around the same time I was digesting all the wonderful advice from Brooks, I was also obsessed with the Enneagram. I probably have about seven books on it. So when I read about the three dimensions of character, I saw a connection I could use with the Enneagram. Remember in Jami’s post where she talks about Average health and Healthy versions of the same personality? What I like to do is pinpoint a character in the Average health range and have their responses to stress, their third dimension choices, come from the Average health range. Then by the end of their arc, they’re making third dimension choices in the Healthy range.

So just how to use/study the Enneagram? Word of caution–you could easily get sucked in trying to find your own type and those of your loved ones. Try to stay focused on your characters. With that in mind, here’s some books I recommend to help with character development:

Personality Types: Using the Enneagram for Self-Discovery – this is the one you want to get to learn about the stages of health for each personality type. It breaks it down to nine levels: three in the healthy stage, three in Average, and three in Unhealthy. To keep with Jami’s example of a Enneagram 2, Mother Theresa was a Level 1, a selfless giver. Tons of wonderful traits at this level, but when you get to the unhealthy levels? An unhealthy two partly corresponds to aspects of histrionic personality disorder in the DSM-IV psychiatric types! I like to put my characters at or around a Level 4 (Average, but at the highest rung for Average) and move them to Level 3 or 2.

Are You My Type, Am I Yours? : Relationships Made Easy Through The Enneagram - since I write romance, I like to use this to get some ideas for how their relationship dynamics might work. It has a comparison for each type match. So if you have a 2 with an 8, it’ll tell you what they like most about each other and what annoys them. For an in-depth look at the Enneagram, this is not your book, however. It’s pretty basic.

Believable Characters: Creating with Enneagrams - this is a good one for looking at the different types specifically with creating characters in mind. It goes into each types Inner Fear/Wound and their heroic strengths. If you’re on a budget, you can skip the Are You My Type book above, as this one also compares each type together in a relationship.


The Literary Enneagram: Characters from the Inside Out – This one is great too, but it approaches it in a different way. It goes through each type and uses examples from literature to demonstrate/show each type, from healthy to average to unhealthy.




Related posts:

Or if you’re of an age where this makes sense (I’m not), here’s another way to look at them :)

enneagram_of_pony_personality_by_mr_uhrig-d4led2g

So have you used the Enneagram or Myers-Briggs to help with character development?

5 Comments
by Angela Quarles on April 17, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in Writer Wednesday, Writing
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Posted by Angela Quarles on April 17, 2013

http://angelaquarles.com/2013/04/17/melding-the-enneagram-with-brooks-3-dimensions-of-character/

Ack! I have a plot hole! Techniques to Solve in an Early Stage

download (5)So, last time I truly posted, I was taking a blogging hiatus to work on the sequel to MUST LOVE BREECHES. I’ve since then finished the first draft and have been working on high-level revisions since. I love plot and am a nerd about finding different ways to tackle looking at it. I definitely needed to find a different way to handle this one, because it had problems, and I knew it.

The biggest problem? I knew the ending before I ever started writing it, so my plot points just before the big Crisis were pushed to make this crisis happen. Result? It lacked believability and motivation. So much so, readers would’ve likely thrown the book at the wall.

Also, some of my major plot points were tied with the specific time period and I wanted to make sure the history was sound.

The first thing I did was make a spreadsheet with my scenes and it helped me a little–I saw gaps and plugged in new rows for scenes that needed to be there. When I thought I had it figured out, I transferred it to a Word Document that I created, where I just gave summaries of what happens in each chapter, a Chapter Outline. This I sent to one Welsh historian and a couple of Beta readers. Because of the possible plot problems, I didn’t want to wait until I had a readable full-length draft. I got great feedback and took that and revised the Outline again and sent it to a couple of other historians who helped me shore up the historical plot points.

But the Crisis? Yep, everyone came back and said it didn’t work–wasn’t believable. But it was the one thing in my whole plot I couldn’t throw out–it was the image I had in my head when I first started noodling this WIP around for possibilities and I also knew it was a strong image. So, it had to stay.

Back to the drawing board. I really worried each time I sat down to try to solve this that I wouldn’t figure it out. I felt like I was so close but couldn’t quite get there.

I could also tell that the Outline, while it helped as an instrument to gain feedback from others in an early stage, wasn’t helpful to me to try to make sense of it; I couldn’t play with it. Then I remembered my plotting board and fondness for stickies that I’ve used on other WIPS, so pulled it out and went to town.

wpid-0314120903.jpg

It helped me a little, some of the smaller plot issues I was able to see and fix by adding new stickies and moving others around. But the Black Moment leading up to the Crisis was still a problem. So I went to my trusty Beta partner Jami Gold and sent her my bulleted list of events leading up to the Crisis and she came back with a wonderful idea for the motivation, but also helped me look at the Black Moment I had and came up with some other suggestions for how to have it play out. This got my mental juices unblocked and at the plotting board I began making stickies, rearranging scenes, and then also saw how I could tie her idea in with the Antagonist and pull it all together. I also then saw that having a change of location helped raise the tension and stakes. I was then able to see how the heroine’s personality could be tweaked to make it even more impactful. Excited, I typed up version 3 of my Chapter Outline and sent it to Jami and some new victims for feedback.

But I can feel it–I can feel the story works now. My gut wasn’t wrong when I finished that first draft, and I’m so glad I listened to it and found a way to get valuable input in such an early stage. I really dreaded revising this WIP with my gut feeling that way, worried that I’d go to all this trouble revising and polishing and then have my gut proved right when Beta feedback came back and pointed out the plot problems. Now I feel much more confident going into actual revisions; the framework for the story is much more solid. Now I can work on all the other fun stuff I like to do during revisions and get this revised and polished. Now, hopefully, my Beta readers will be able to help see smaller issues instead of pointing out big macro issues that should’ve been firmed up before I ever got to that stage.

I also liked working with an outline and fiddling with it, not touching my prose at all. It was much easier to see, without running the risk of overreading the WIP too early.

So, to distill this for others that might be in the same boat (I’m a “plantser” –someone who does some pre-plotting but pantses the rest of the first draft):

  • Take your first draft and make a chapter outline. Mine came out to ten pages.
  • Just like in the Beta stage, get a variety of folks to look at it. I had historians who knew nothing about the writing craft, as well as others who did. Evaluate their comments just like you would on a full manuscript. See a pattern? You have a problem.
  • Fiddle and revise. Go back to any tools you’ve used in the past to help you look at your manuscript differently (for me it was the plotting board)
  • Get someone who is deeply familiar with plotting and structure, and that you trust to be honest with you, to take a look at it

How have you handled plot problems in the past? Have you also pulled in outside eyes at this early stage? Has it helped you? What techniques have you used to look at your plot in a high-level way?

DISCLAIMER: I don’t watch Dr. Who, so I have no idea if the image I used is a fair assessment of that episode, but I thought it seemed appropriate to the post to illustrate a problem common to many writers when working out their plot. Plus, appropriately enough, it deals with time travel ;)

29 Comments
by Angela Quarles on April 10, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in Current Work, Update, Writer Wednesday, Writing
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Posted by Angela Quarles on April 10, 2013

http://angelaquarles.com/2013/04/10/ack-i-have-a-plot-hole-techniques-to-solve-in-an-early-stage/

Believability in high stakes with paranormal fiction–can death be pulled off?

download (5)!SPOILER ALERT! I will be mentioning by name the death of a secondary character in a Nora Roberts’ Circle Trilogy book, and characters in a Joss Whedon film, so if you’d rather not know, don’t read further.

Okay…

I’m the the middle of reading Morrigan’s Cross by Nora Roberts, and King just died and I didn’t have the reaction I think I probably should have last night, and it made me start to wonder, and so because of that, I thought ‘hey, self, blog post!’

So this isn’t any well thought out treatise, but rather my thoughts this morning in case anyone else could add to this.

Anyway, here’s how my reading experience went last night when I got to that part of the book: I completely missed that he was dead. Sure, I read the lines where he was drop-kicked over the edge of a cliff, but it didn’t click with me that that equaled truly dead (it also happened extremely quickly). So I’m reading further along and the other characters are all angry and weepy and I’m confused, because my brain hadn’t registered it. I kept expecting for it to be a mistake, for King to stumble back and say “I’m not dead, caught a ledge guys” and everyone breathes a sigh of relief. But it hasn’t happened (yet) and this got me to thinking:

is it harder to convince a reader of a character’s death when writing paranormal fiction?

heck, even Sherlock Holmes survived a fall like this. Are we now trained to think that if we don’t actually see the death, it hasn’t actually happened in fiction because too many times authors have pulled the gotcha?

Even if you do pull a gotcha (And Nora might still pull one with King; I haven’t finished it yet), as a writer you’d want the reader to still believe the death happened. But you don’t want to yank them too much and this book is a great example of this. I remember thinking when these characters who make up the team were first getting introduced that I hoped Roberts wasn’t going to kill one of them, and that if she did, I’d be really pissed. But when it happened, I didn’t throw the book at the wall, so she’d skillfully not gotten me too invested in the character. Looking back, he’s the only one, besides Larkin, whose head we haven’t hopped into, Nora-Roberts-style. And killing off a team member is a great device to show the stakes are real (Serenity!). But even in Serenity, we saw both Book and Wash truly die. The stakes were real and felt/mourned at the time. Here, I’m not feeling it, yet I wouldn’t have wanted to feel it too much. So it’s definitely a hard line to navigate.

Anyway, that’s it. Just wanted to put this out there and see if anyone else had thoughts on this :)

Do you think it’s harder to pull off a death in paranormal fiction? Have you read this book–what was your reaction? (don’t tell me the end)

5 Comments
by Angela Quarles on April 3, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in Writing
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Posted by Angela Quarles on April 3, 2013

http://angelaquarles.com/2013/04/03/believability-in-high-stakes-with-paranormal-fiction-can-death-be-pulled-off/

Writer Wednesday: Using Bit.ly as part of your marketing campaign

images

This is one of those posts I hate to write, because there’s probably other services people like better and I’m by no means an expert, and will cause eye rolling on the part of those uber-familiar with it. So this post is to other fellow authors who’ve never used bitly to help with tracking how their marketing and promotions are working, because I wish I’d thought to use them from the beginning.

So you non-eye rollers are probably familiar with them for its way of making your hyperlinks shorter, and that’s why I initially went there shortly after my book launched. I sent out a notice with those shortened links and didn’t think anything more of it. Then I went back again to get another link shortened and noticed the “Stats” button, and was like Whoa!

bitly_clicksIt not only tells you how many times someone’s clicked on it, but where. You can also break it down by day, if you want. Also, you can see which sites had folks clicking on the link.

So, how to use this effectively? I now use it anytime I’m promoting a link that I care to track, like links to buy sites, reviews, guest posts and the like, because these are stats I can’t get anywhere else. Anytime I’m posting on a site other than my blog (email, guest posts, facebook, twitter) I use these, so that I can track the effectiveness of my campaign.

The other thing it has, which I wish I’d seen before I made my postcards promoting my book, is a QR Code generator for each link! Print materials are so difficult to assess, but now you can use bitly to create your QR code and then track its effectiveness, cool huh?

I went so far as to have a QR code on mine (I also have them on my business cards), but alas, I created them without using bitly, so I have no way to see how many people scanned it. I know there are services out there that can generate your QR code and probably track it as well, but I like this because it’s part of the rest of my links.

Bonus tip: What if the QR code is to a link you already have in bitly but you want to track separately? Here’s a coding trick: You can add extra stuff to the end of your URL and it won’t affect the page being pulled up. Just do this, at the end of the URL add:

?campaign=pcard

Or whatever will distinguish it for you. Be careful though. Check the URL string for ?. If there’s already one in there, then at the end do this instead:

&campaign=pcard

Just remember that this is visible to your reader, so don’t make it offensive (unless that’s part of your brand).

Do you use bitly or another service? If you know of a better service, or even a blog post that explains this better than me, please comment! I’m all about sharing the knowledge we accumulate!

14 Comments
by Angela Quarles on February 6, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in Writer Wednesday, Writing
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Posted by Angela Quarles on February 6, 2013

http://angelaquarles.com/2013/02/06/writer-wednesday-using-bit-ly-as-part-of-your-marketing-campaign/

Writer Wednesday: When You Hit That Wall, Do You Nurse Your Head, Or Climb Over?

Face Rock'dThis is the full post! Sorry about the earlier post, I accidentally hit Publish, instead of Save Draft, so email and RSS subscribers, ignore the first one (please?)

Yesterday on Mina Khan’s blog, I talked about the strategies I use to cope with the vicissitudes of the writing life. I thought I’d expand a little on one of my strategies: envisioning my setbacks as brick walls to climb over. In my guest post, I gave this advice for setbacks:

When I come across a setback (rejections), I picture that I’ve just hit a solid wall along with many others on the same journey. Then I picture myself scaling it and getting to the other side so I can keep going. It also helps to know that many don’t do this and they’re milling around at that wall too afraid to climb over, etc, BUT I also make sure when I see someone else I know hit that wall that I lend a helping hand to help them over, whether it’s words of encouragement or an offer to critique. The sad truth is, many writers give up way too early and don’t keep going forward.

This garnered the most comments, and so I thought I’d expand the analogy a bit here to talk about it as a great coping mechanism. I can’t take credit for the visualization, though. I first saw it mentioned by agent Rachelle Gardner, in her post What’s Your Brick Wall? She in turn had heard about it from Randy Pausch who talked about brick walls as obstacles to achieving childhood dreams and wrote that these walls ”stop the people who don’t want it badly enough.” It resonated with her, because she’s often the brick wall to writers and their dream of being published. She said:

Each time I become the brick wall… each time an author crashes into my “no,” they are forced to reckon with their own dreams. They have to ask themselves once again, “How badly do I want it?” That can’t be a bad thing, right?

Thankfully, I read this post before I started the agenting process and it truly helped me, not only with that phase, but any time I had a writing setback. I cannot stress enough how much it truly helped to picture this. Honest-to-God picture it. As in, visualize it. See yourself hitting it, and then see yourself shaking your head, dusting yourself off, and scaling that wall. Then look around. There aren’t as many people aspiring to be writers around you, because they didn’t climb that wall! But as I said in the post yesterday, if you see a friend struggling behind a wall, lend a helping hand.

Facing a false brick wallThis can be taken further. That wall is only as thick and tall as you make it! Don’t let it stop you! It also could just be imagined. Is it fear making you think an obstacle is there and it really isn’t?

Do you let it define you as the writer who keeps hitting these walls at every turn and wear it as a badge of honor? And I don’t mean as one of the many aspects of our writing lives, but does this become the whole definition of you? Your excuse for not being where you want to be, and you nurse it, and point to the wall to anyone who will listen? Many aspiring writers find safety in the numbers milling around that wall and commiserate with them. But they never climb that wall, and they let that last obstacle define them. It’s fine to commiserate when you first hit that wall–lord knows it helps!!–but only aspiring writers stay there.

It’s also so apt, because often when we smack headlong into that brick wall, it can really hurt. We can feel bruised, our head can feel a bit dazed. But see it for what it is–an opportunity to go further than others have the guts to go.

Keep climbing those walls, my fellow writers!

What about you? Have you seen this analogy before and did it help? If this is new, did this post help? How else does it apply to our journey that I overlooked?

10 Comments
by Angela Quarles on January 30, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in Writer Wednesday, Writing
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Posted by Angela Quarles on January 30, 2013

http://angelaquarles.com/2013/01/30/writer-wednesday-when-you-hit-that-wall/

Guest Post: Strategies for Replenishing Your Writing Self

angela_verticalbooksToday I’m on Mina Khan’s blog with “Strategies for Replenishing Your Writing Self” where I share what I do when I’m burnt out, discouraged, or hit a setback. What do YOU do?

2 Comments
by Angela Quarles on January 29, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in Writing
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Posted by Angela Quarles on January 29, 2013

http://angelaquarles.com/2013/01/29/guest-post-strategies-for-replenishing-your-writing-self/

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