Writer On The Verge
November 18, 2007 by A Slice of Orange in category Archives tagged as Kate Carlisle, Writer on the Verge
A Cautionary Tale
Can I just say “Ditto†to what Maureen Child blogged about yesterday? Because if there was ever some good advice to be given to someone who has the desire to be a professional writer, it’s that they absolutely should be writing every day.
Cheers!
The Write Way (because there is no ‘Right’ way….
November 18, 2007 by A Slice of Orange in category Archives
Okay, maybe this woman had it a little harder than WE do!!
But when the holidays roll around and there’s family making all kinds of demands on your time, what’s a writer supposed to do?
Today, the plan was to finish my current chapter and get at least half way through the next one. What’s the old saying?? If you want to make God laugh, tell Her your plans??
Well, no writing was done today. And you know what, it’s okay. I’ll make up the pages. I’ll pick up the pace again later. Because as writers, that’s what we do. It’s who we are.
If you’re lucky enough to be making a living at this wonderful/miserable/fantastic/challenging career, then you just suck it up and do what you have to do.
Someone asked me the other day how I’d managed to write and sell more than 100 books in the last mumble mumble years. The answer? You keep typing. You keep imagining. You keep your butt in the chair and you do the work. If one proposal’s rejected, you do another one. When you finish one book, you move onto the next one.
Now, with the holidays upon us (and how did that happen so quickly??), my game plan will be to write when I can and do however much I can a day. Try to write at least a page every day. Keep yourself immersed in your story because after two weeks off, it’s hard to remember how to string a compelling paragraph together!
So remember that you’re a writer. When the family demands your time, remember to give yourself some time, too. To do what you were born to do. To tell your stories. To live in your imagination. Because, as my favorite old saying goes…….If Mama ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy!
Writer’s Word
November 17, 2007 by A Slice of Orange in category Archives tagged as Jenny Hansen, Writer's Word“Replace†the Tendonitis
by Jenny Hansen
At the November meeting our Esteemed Presidents plugged my column at the podium and invited anyone who had a question about Word to email me. One brave soul stepped right up and shared with me that her editing was giving her a BAD case of tendonitis.
Her question: I’d like to see the Find feature be enhanced in Word. When I edit, I use this to find my overused words like- she/her, was, “ly” adverbs, etc. I highlight them in different colors, then go back and edit them out. Problem is, I get tendonitis in my arm from working the mouse back and forth between the word and selecting the color! Is there any way to “hold” or “lock in” the color selection?
No one should have to deal with tendonitis from writing, especially with something like this that can be done so much easier. There are actually two fixes – one is more manual and one is more automatic. I will share both of them with you, along with some of my thoughts about the beauty of the Replace feature.
Manual method:
In all Microsoft programs, the F4 button on the keyboard means “do that again!” So if you highlight the word you want and set the color, then the next word you highlight should allow you to hit the F4 key and give you the color again. I can’t say this has a lot of finesse, but it will save your arm when it comes to changing the color of the words in the first place.
Note for those of you who do not know how to change the Font color in Word:
You can click on the Format menu and choose Font and pick a color from there (CTRL+D brings up the Font dialog box with no mousing) OR you can simply click on the last button of the Formatting toolbar. It looks like the letter “A†with a colored line under it. The color of the line will most likely be black but, if you’ve been playing with the colors, it will be the shade of the last color you chose.
Automatic method:
If the F4 method doesn’t work for you (perhaps you want your words to be bold AND purple), you might want to use the Replace feature instead.
The Replace command is located in the Find dialog box – it is the second tab. To use the keyboard: Find is brought up with the CTRL+F keyboard shortcut, Replace is brought up with CTRL + H. I also know people who like to double-click with their mouse on the Status bar at the bottom of the screen in Word – this is the one that says “Page 1†and “Sec 1†and sits at the bottom to the left of the page numbers (these look something like “2/12â€). If you double-click on the Status Bar, the Find/Replace/GoTo dialog box will pop up. Simply click on the Replace tab and you are in business.
In the Replace dialog box, there is a button called “More” with a double arrow on it. If you click on that More button, it will expand the dialog box to where you see an entire lower section that contains a bunch of nifty stuff. In order for you decide for yourself which nifty stuff you really like, I encourage you to click on the question mark in the upper right corner of this dialog and see what is here.
Now that you have expanded the “More†section, that same button will read “Less†to shrink things back down. Definitely take a look around here – this is a jackpot for writers.
For example, if you wanted to find all the “she” or all the “her,” you could put the same word in both the “Find what” and the “Replace with” lines. Then highlight the word in the “Replace with” line and click on the Format button down in the lower section of the dialog – pick the font color and style you want. Hit the Replace All button. This will replace every instance of that word with the same word in the formatted style that you want. You can always do the same thing with a different font/color request to change everything back. There is no mouse involved in this, hence less tendonitis.
The unnamed Chapter Member who asked this question found a piece of “shareware” out there that I thought I’d pass along. It’s called Fore Words. It’s an add-on to Word, and will find repetitive words and phrases. It is priced at $14.95 and I’ve included the link: http://www.cro-code.com/forewords.jsp
If anyone thinks up another question that MUST be answered, just email me at jennyhansensmail@aol.com. Otherwise, prepare for a column on using Track Changes next month. By then, my Christmas baking should be all finished!
WRITE ANGLE
November 16, 2007 by Rebecca Forster in category The Write Life by Rebecca Forster tagged as Rebecca Forster, Write Angleby Rebecca Forster
Like hopscotch, anyone who is anyone (think Hallmark, Macys, my children) leap off Halloween, land firmly on Christmas and roll their broke –and- tired- of- celebrating selves into a new year with only a quick touchdown in November for Thanksgiving day. All this makes the month of November seem irrelevant, a step child, a wallflower at the dance. A chapter that one can skip without missing anything important to the story.
Case in point. The grocery store, November 1. Milk is the mission. To get to the dairy case I had to dodge the sale bins of Halloween candy (brown corrugated cardboard) and slalom around the even bigger full-price bins of Christmas candy (red and green corrugated cardboard) . When I finally got to the milk it was surrounded by little soldiers encased in waxy yellow cardboard – the infamous eggnog..
To be fair, I did spy a display of cornstarch (bright yellow cardboard), Cornbread stuffing mix (brown cardboard) and pumpkin pie goop (hallelujia, a tin can). I suppose my brain should have registered Thanksgiving but the wreath display above the end-cap made me think Christmas dinner.
Which brings me to November and its one-day claim to fame – Thanksgiving. Other months are filled with days of celebration. October is spent sewing costumes, watching horror movies, getting ready for trick-or-treat. December’s days come with luncheons, holiday parties, gift exchanges and cookie baking. Thanksgiving’s frenetic cooking and eating is twenty-four hours long and the next day Christmas sales wipe November from our minds completely.
For me, though, ignoring November is like skipping over a chapter that really deserves attention. Sure there may be a hot love scene in chapter twelve, but chapter eleven gives you all the subtle little insights into why you’ll care what happens next. So here is my November; here is what I would miss if, every year, I leapt over this chapter in my life.
November is the month when I first feel the bite of a cold wind that reminds me even California has seasons and that, in reality, I’m still a Missouri girl. It is the month when long days become short and the early darkness makes me feel like nesting. Cuddled under a quilt of my own making I take the time to truly appreciate the feathers of that nest: chicks who come and go, a husband who still finds this bird the most lovable in the flock after 31 years, a warm place to hunker down if the rain comes.
November is a month in which we celebrate the birthdays of my sisters-in-law – a set of twins and one more. They have been my good friends for what seems like forever. It is the month I travel to see my own brothers and sisters half way across the country. I can’t wait because seeing their faces – even if it is only now and again – makes me feel as if I am still young, my father is still with us, my mother will still rule the roost and all is right with the world.
November isn’t the end, so I still have time to do things that will make me feel as if I am wrapping up the year well; it is not the beginning so there isn’t the uncertainty that what lies ahead might not be as good as what was left behind.
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