Quick Update on Like Glass and Shattered…
Okay, worked things out with the publisher, and this is where we stand. Like Glass will be published as planned — November 2010 in the UK, 2011 in the US. It will not, however, be considered part of a series to start — it’s going out (initially, at least) as a standalone novel.
Shattered is no longer scheduled for publishing. It requires too many changes, and I’m not able to concentrate well enough to give it the work it deserves. Perhaps someday in the near future it’ll be different, and HandE Media already said they would love to publish it when that time comes. At present, though, it’s not a consideration. The third novel in the series, Broken Peaces, isn’t even in the works at the moment; it’s going the same direction as Shattered.
I’ll keep you posted as things change.
Great First Day – Keep ‘Em Coming!
Well, today was the first full day for ChocolateForDogs.com, and all told it went better than I expected. Got some users signed up, ran into a snag with GMail accounts (can’t have everything now),and got the first posts up that aren’t from me!
Also, today we setup comments and social bookmarking options for content, so you can give the writers feedback and share your favorite posts with your friends on Twitter, Facebook, and Google Buzz.
So, for the first day, it went great! Hopefully tomorrow we’ll get some more users and some more content. I’m also looking into setting up event calendars for authors and maybe some other odds and ends too. If you have suggestions, don’t be afraid to mention them! And if you want to join in, go to http://chocolatefordogs.com and sign up!
Catch you on the flip side.
–Matt
Writers Wanted!
ChocolateForDogs.com is now live! We’re looking for writers — all backgrounds and genres — ready to send their content! It’s a great way for you to help build your readership if you’re an existing author, and a great way to get started if you like to write and just haven’t done anything with it.
And seriously, I do mean anything — one of the upcoming submissions is details of a dream! I’m going to be adding software development tutorials once I get things leveled out a little bit, and I’m going to be adding some of my short stories too. What can you add?
Registration
For right now, we’re having a two-step registration process for authors. The first is “regular” registration, for the site in general. In the second step, available once you’ve registered, you’ll submit information about you as a writer — this will be used to build your Author bio page. I’ll review that information, create your bio page, and give you author access. Then you’ll be able to submit your content!
Submissions
To make sure people are just submitting random junk (read: spam), the submission process is slightly different from what you might expect. You upload your submission — plain text, rich text (RTF), or MS Word format — and I’ll review it. I do some copy editing and maybe make some suggestions about the submission — you can take those as you wish (but I’ll try to be helpful, not just critical, and explain the suggestions as best as possible too). Then it’ll get posted to the site, and you can sit back and relax. Or work on your next one. (Or stress out about random stuff in general, if you’re anything like me…)
Now, I know there’s little content there right now. I know the site looks dull and boring. That’s because it’s only been open to the public for a day 
And I really need your help — it can be great, but not if it’s just me posting random junk up there (like this site, come to think of it…). So get in there — http://chocolatefordogs.com/ — look around, and start submitting!
–Matt
ChocolateForDogs.com Author Pre-Registration
Alright, for all you writers who are interested in building your readership with the new ChocolateForDogs.com website, check it out:
I added a pre-registration form for you to fill out. The site should be ready to launch sometime this week, and I’d like to get you set up and ready to go with it. I’m still working out the kinks — and probably will be for a while, I’m sure — but we can get you started and get some of your submissions ready to go when it launches.
Fill out the form, and I’ll get back to you ASAP. We’ll work out details like your bio, links, etc., and you can give me an idea of where your writing will belong (i.e. genre, category, whatever). In the beginning here, it’s gonna be a lot of “play-by-email” work while I’m getting things straightened out, just to give you a heads up. But we’ll work it out, and hopefully it won’t be too long before we’re able to automate most things.
Anyways, it’s late and I’m blabbering on, distracting you when you should be filling out the form. Catch you on the flip side.
–Matt
ChocolateForDogs.com Down to be Revamped
You may or may not know of my other site, chocolatefordogs.com. It is – or rather, was – where I’d post programming tutorials and tips.
Well, it’s done. With that, at least. There’s nothing there right now, but soon – hopefully within the next week – therell be a new site there where writers from all backgrounds, styles, genres, and formats can post their own content free of charge.
Right now I’m working out some of the main details – submission workflow and author access rights especially – but it should be moving along pretty well. To get something up and running, I’m going to be using “off-the-shelf” software. We’ll use that for a while, and see how it stands up to the task. When people start using it, there’s sure to be changes to make it easier and better; hopefully what I’m using can accommodate those easily enough. If not, then I’ll look into doing a custom site and see how that pans out.
And, FYI, the site will be completely free – no fees, at least to start with (and I don’t see any reason there will ever be a need to charge).
Keep your eyes on this site for updates!
–Matt
Calling All Writers!
I’m looking for all writers — fiction and non-fiction, all genres/areas of expertise. I’m in the process of starting up a new community site, and I’m looking to see who’s interested. It’s still in the planning stages right now — looking to get it up and running here in a week or so — but it’ll be one more place you can get your content out to the world and help build a readership! You’ll be able to submit your content of any kind, and we’ll edit it for you and work with you regarding the edits! You’ll get feedback on what needs to be changed (if anything!) and why, not just accepted (and possibly changed), or rejected with no reason. You’ll keep all the rights to your work, and we’ll take it down whenever you want it taken off.
If you’re interested, let me know, either via the comments here or by sending me an email at the address on the contact page. If you know someone who likes to write, send them along.
Gotta run — catch you on the flip side.
–Matt
Editing Services Offer
Okay all you writers out there, I know you need editing work done — and if you’re like me, you probably don’t want to admit it That’s all good; I still want to help you out though. So, here’s what I want you to do: send me ten pages of your latest work, and I’ll give you a full copy edit and critique/developmental edit on those ten pages for free. I’ll go over it, make my edits and notes, and send it back to you. If you like it, then great — maybe we can work together further. If not, then what did you lose? (And you don’t have to fret over getting exactly ten pages — I won’t be terribly picky about it, just be reasonable on it.)
So, you can head on over to the Editing page and fill out that form, or just head to the Contact page and send me an email directly. (Either one works fine; with email you’ll be able to send the attachment, but the editing page will have some details that I’d like to get from you too.) If you email it straight away, I’d prefer it in either Word doc/docx format, plain text, or RTF. If you can’t do that, we’ll figure something out — no worries.
Well, what are you waiting for? Get your pages over here!
–Matt
A Stranger
A strange man came into my bar last night. He was old, probably late sixties or early seventies. I didn’t see any lights pulling into the parking lot, so I guessed he’d been walking. That’s not unusual; we get a lot of folks from the nearby apartments walking in, wanting to hedge their bets against the cops. The story he told though, now that was unusual. I’m getting a little ahead of myself though.
The bar was empty both before and after he came in. We’re not exactly a booming place here in El Paso anyways, but this close to the holidays we’re pretty much always dead – everyone wants to save their money for presents, not spend it on beer.
I heard the door jingle – the stupid little decorations the bartenders put up when I’m not around – and looked up to see this old man walk in, covered in jackets and looking like he’d never met a razor before in his life. My first thought, of course, was that he was a bum; we get a few of those around every once in a while, and I’m more than willing to buy them a beer or two for doing odd jobs around the place.
Something about him told me that he was different though. Maybe it was the way that he walked, or something in his eyes, but he wasn’t a regular, run-of-the-mill bum. He sat down at the bar and I walked over to him.
“What can I get you?” I asked as I finished drying the glass I’d been washing.
His accent was strange; not quite British, definitely not American, but it was clear enough to where I could tell he’d at least grown up speaking English.
“I’ll have a … oh, what do you people call it … oh, that’s right. I’ll have a ‘beer’.” His voice was pleasant, happy, not the near-bitter tone that most of our patrons have. I gave him his beer, and he paid me from a large wad of bills that I wouldn’t have expected given his appearance. He put a twenty in the tip jar, and sipped his beer with a sigh of relief.
I went back to my cleaning, letting him drink in peace while I washed glasses and mopped behind the bar. It was mostly busy work; there wasn’t much to clean up, since there hadn’t been any customers earlier in the day or the night before. He called me over for another beer, and I poured it for him. This time, when he offered to pay, I waved him off.
“Don’t worry about it. This one’s on the house,” I told him, and he smiled. He paused for a moment, as if trying to find the right words, and then his expression brightened.
“That’s right,” he said, “‘Thank you’. I knew I’d remember.”
I wiped the bar off to one side of him – again, just busy work. “So, where you from?” I asked. It was obvious that he wasn’t from here, or from any country I could guess. That didn’t mean much; around here, the only two languages I ever heard were English and Spanish, and it’s not like I’ve toured the world or anything.
He smiled, a warm, knowing smile, and sipped from his mug before he spoke again. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” he said, and something in his voice made me think he was right.
“Well,” I said, setting my rag down on a shelf behind the bar. “Try me. I hear a lot of crazy stories in this place; I’m sure one more won’t hurt.”
He laughed. “No, no. I’m sure it wouldn’t hurt. But…”
I laughed a little. Truth was I was dead bored, and he could’ve told me he was from the moon and I would’ve probably listened intently. “Well, try me anyways,” I repeated. He sighed, and was silent long enough that I almost thought he’d fallen asleep. Eventually, though, he looked up, a smile still lighting his face and an intensity in his eyes that almost scared me.
“I am,” he began, “a refugee, as your people would call it.” Great, I thought. We’re going to have immigration beating down the door now. I almost kicked him out right then, but he raised his hand before I could say anything.
“Not quite the right word, but close enough,” he said, and I relaxed a little bit. At least I could hear him out.
“I come from a place that isn’t unlike this one, or, at least, it used to be quite similar. Better, actually, but I won’t get into that. It … it doesn’t matter any more anyways.” He said this last part with a distant hurt, and was silent again for a brief moment before continuing.
“My ‘country’,” he said, with the same excitement he’d had earlier over finding the right words, “is currently in the middle of a … ‘revolution’, I believe you call it. I have been lucky enough to … escape. To find my way to your land, one I’d heard of many times but only recently truly believed existed. I must say, I’m quite pleased I made it, too. This place is … nice.”
“You obviously haven’t been here very long,” I said. He laughed.
“No, not long at all. Only a few … ‘hours’,” he said.
I didn’t know what to make of his story. I’ve never paid much attention to the news, so I didn’t know what countries were fighting at the moment. There was something about him that sounded reliable though (and yes, that’s gotten me into trouble before, too), and I figured I’d at least give him the benefit of the doubt. I was going to ask him some questions, but he continued before I could start.
“The place I come from is … scarred, you could say. I’ve come here seeking refuge, to finish out my life in what peace I may be able to find.” He took a sip from his beer, and a look of surprised anguish came over his face. I almost laughed; it was terribly melodramatic, but he took me by the arm with a grip that seemed unnaturally strong for such an old man.
“They’re coming,” he gasped. I stifled a laugh; it was like something out of a bad movie, but the fear in his eyes could only have been real. He stood up and threw a wad of bills on the counter.
“Tell no one I was here,” he said, his voice strained. Before I could say anything, he walked out the door.
I looked at the money he left on the counter – at least two hundred dollars, just from what I could tell at a quick glance. I had to catch him; I could keep my mouth shut for free, he didn’t need to give me a month’s worth of profits for that, especially this close to Christmas.
Even as fast as I ran out the door though, he was gone. I looked up and down the street, and couldn’t see him anywhere. I even ran up to one corner, didn’t see him down that street, and ran back to the other corner. Nothing.
I went back inside and counted the money, which I’d foolishly left on the counter. Thankfully no one had come in during my search, as he’d left a total of three hundred, forty-five dollars to pay for a two-dollar mug of beer. Nice tip…
Roughly a minute after I’d put the cash in my pocket (there was no way I was letting that much money slip into the tax man’s hands), two GI’s came in. They were dressed in civilian clothes, but this is a military town as much as it’s a border town; you can spot a military man a mile away once you’ve been here for a while. They both sat down at the bar and ordered a soda each.
They didn’t say much to me, but they eyed the place much more carefully than a normal customer would. One went to the restroom as soon as I set their drinks down; he returned a few moments later looking a little strange. Disappointed? Relieved? I couldn’t tell.
I couldn’t really get anything from their conversation, either. They talked about Iraq, about UTEP’s football team, about the Dallas Cowboys. It was a little forced, like they were putting up a front, but it was also well practiced. Had I not had such a strange visitor earlier in the night, I probably wouldn’t even have noticed. As it was though, my nerves were a little on edge, and I probably paid them more attention than necessary.
They didn’t stay but for the one soda, and left me a two dollar tip. When they were leaving, though, I heard – maybe just my imagination, I won’t deny it – one of them whisper “Not here; he’s probably back already.” Then he grunted something, and they got into their car (a plain civilian make) and took off.
Never saw the GI’s or that stranger again.
I did hear on the news later that night about a homeless man they’d found dead on a park bench downtown though, and it made me think of him. Hope it wasn’t; he seemed like a decent guy. Maybe a little too loose with his cash, but I ain’t complaining.
Vanishing Point to Return
Some of you may remember the series of short stories I was writing a couple of years ago, the Vanishing Point series. I’m going to start bringing those back again, and this time we’ll actually start getting into the story line instead of just teasing you like I had been
I’ll start by re-running the original posts/stories, possibly with some editing to clean things up — they were always written in the “seat of the pants” method, so I’ll try and give them a bit more respect. Keep an eye out for the first one coming out later today!
–Matt
Organizing Your Freelance Writing Projects
I’ve been trying to do basic freelancing for about a week now, just to get the hang of it. Already I’ve come to one conclusion: like any project, decent organization is the key to writing a successful article. Okay, maybe it’s not much of a mind blower, but it’s still true and it’s still something that I know a lot of people over look.
A lot of freelance writing jobs — the ones I’ve been working on, at least — are really small articles, normally less than 500 words. When you’ve been writing for a while, it’s easy to get arrogant and think “Hey, 500 words ain’t nothing; I can do this with my eyes closed.” Then you dive in. I got lucky with a few of the first articles I wrote; they were on topics I already knew inside and out, backwards and forwards and sideways. I thought I could keep going like that, but I quickly got in over my head.
Right now, most of my freelancing work is through DemandMedia (opens in a new window). They’re a content provider for several sites; the main ones I’ve been writing for are eHow and Answerbag (those both open in a new window too). They’ve got a decent back-end for writers: several formats to choose from, each with their own requirements, and a reasonable layout for organizing your articles in sections. The general site is pretty good, and, for the actual act of writing, it gets the job done. But this article is talking about organizing your freelance article before you start writing it.
What You Need
There’s really only two tools you’ll need for this, and they’re pretty easy to come by: a pen and a set of index cards. Yeah, I know, we live in the digital age, and everything needs to be online or at least on a computer. Here’s why I prefer the old fashioned route for this:
- Portability. Yes, I have a laptop, and I have a Motorola Droid, so I can do a lot of this anywhere. But if I drop an index card, I can pick it back up, dust it off and not worry about it. If I drop my phone, I’m out a lot more money than I really care to lose right now. Also, index cards don’t need to be charged, and they don’t need an internet connection.
- Freedom. Personally, I like the ability to write free-form. I can add a note off to the side of an index card much easier than trying to add and format a new line on a computer program. I can scribble, doodle, scratch things out and mark them as okay later, so on and so forth.
- Price. You just can’t beat it. For less than ten bucks you can get enough pens and index cards to last you quite a long time. For the price of a cheap laptop, you can kill a forest. Not that you should, or anything, but…
- Quick Switching. If you have a lot of projects you’re working on (and if you’re trying to make a living as a freelance writer, you should), you’ll want to go back and forth between your notes sometimes without really losing your place in one project. For example, if you’re outlining an article on hybrid cars, you may come up with an idea for your article on the future of corn farms. Going back and forth with notes in a computer is (for me at least) a little more tedious than switching an index card.
The main reason I suggest index cards over a full notebook or letter-sized paper is explicitly for the size. To start with, at least, we’re looking at just getting rough ideas lined up, not going into too much detail. One sentence, maybe two max. But I’m getting ahead of myself, so let’s fix that right now.
Planning Your Article’s Sections
I’m assuming that you have at least one assignment to work on (hopefully lots of assignments, and if that’s the case, congratulations ). You already know the topic, and maybe you already have a title to build from — that’s how DemandMedia works: you’re given a title to write an article for. If you don’t have a title yet, no worries. Come up with something to identify the project. Maybe the subject and style of the article — “List Five Types of Alternative Energy Sources” — or maybe just something random. When I started Like Glass, I named the project “Cyan” just because I needed something to refer to it by. No real reason for the choice, just a random word. Put that at the top of your index card.
From your title or subject, you probably already have a few key points you want to cover. List those under neath your title, one to a line, and you probably want to indent them a little too — that will allow you to number them for ordering, or renumber them, or mark them however you feel necessary.
Now look through your list. Do those points cover the topic in question? For the example topic of the alternative energy sources, I can come up with four off hand — wind, solar, water, and bio-fuels. I’ll need to come up with another one, but that’s okay. I can move on to other index cards — other projects — for now if I’m stuck, and come back to it later, or I can go online and do a quick Google search and finish it up now. Either way, it doesn’t matter, just as long as we get them filled out before we submit the article. Each of these are your article’s sections. They may not be formally defined as such in your finished product, but these are the areas you’ll need to flesh out.
Fleshing Out The Sections
Once you’ve gotten your key points outline, now you can delve into fleshing them out. There’s a couple of ways you can do this, depending on how comfortable and familiar you are with the topic. If you’re really familiar with the subject, you can probably get past this part fairly easily just going the seat-of-the-pants route. Even if you are though, you might want to give this a try anyways just to see if it helps.
The tip? Same thing, basically: take your key point, and make that your subject/title. Then add more key points — or sub points, if you’d rather. I know, a little anti-climatic, huh? But by organizing your article this way, you keep yourself focused on the relevant details of the article and not the additional fluff that finds its way into a lot of free-form writing efforts.
Of course, if you’re comfortable enough to start writing from here on out, by all means do so. If not, you can keep going to whatever depth you want — just turn a key point into your title and add sub points to it. If you start getting a little far along in this process though, you’ll probably want to compile all of your notes into a full-fledged outline document. Of course, this takes away the benefits of using index cards, but at that stage your project is no longer a 500-word article anyways, so you’ll need bigger guns.
Incorporating Research
Another benefit of organizing your article in this manner is that it makes it really easy to associate your research sources with your key points. You can handle this two ways, depending on which is easier for you and which suits the size of your project better.
- Direct Reference. This is pretty simple — just add the reference information directly below the key point. This is good for smaller projects that aren’t going to use a lot of references, or if you’re positive you’re only going to use a reference once.
- “Referenced” References. This is useful if you’re using the same reference frequently, or you have either a lot of points or a lot of references and you don’t want to get caught up in writing each reference with each point. Still pretty simple: write your references on separate index cards, and refer to them next to your points. Easy way is to number the references, then mark the point with the number. If you have a lot of references, you’ll probably want to group them somehow to keep the references organized as well. Try to keep it simple though, or else you’ll spend more time working on organizing the references than you’ll spend organizing (and writing) your article.
Productive writing is difficult to get started, but getting organized is the first key to getting productive. Is this the only way to do it? Of course not. It’s probably not even the best. But it’s working decently for me. Give it a shot if you’re having a hard time keeping your freelance writing projects organized, and see what happens. You can always build off of it, change it, or scrap it and move on to something else.
Feedback
I want to hear back from you. What works for you? Have you tried this method before? What hasn’t worked for you? Any thoughts, comments, questions, suggestions, etc. are more than welcome — don’t be shy!
Catch you on the flip side.
–Matt
Networked Blogs (on Facebook)
