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The expected early release on account of holiday weekend did not occur. Am stuck here for another hour. And so, to pass the time, I blog.
The OWW focus community has been batting around the idea of starting up another focus. Looks like we might end up discussing styles - what constitutes a style, and how to manipulate them.
Which put me in mind of a focus topic I forgot to suggest, but probably ought to: blurbs. We post and crit on OWW (that's the Online Writing Workshop, http://sff.onlinewritingworkshop.com) with the express purpose, for most of us, of improving our writing and snagging some publication credits. Blurbs fit into that purpose because they are, at their most simple, marketing tools.
A writer needs to know what to respond when someone asks what their book is about, especially if said someone is an agent or publishing type. We need to be practiced in that definition so that, even when frazzled by being face to face with literary luminaries, we can still stammer out the sentence or two that encompass the heart of our book(s).
Blurbs aren't as easy to put together as they sound, either. On one of my writing lists, the Jenny Crusie Cherries list, we did a round of blurbs last winter that was very instructive. I came away with a terrific blurb for Cavalier Attitude that I fully intend to use when I finally get this rewrite done and can begin marketing my work for real.
Now I just need to remember to mention it to Charlie, or one of the other OWW folks he has minding the focus list, so we can run one of those after the style focus is done.
The OWW focus community has been batting around the idea of starting up another focus. Looks like we might end up discussing styles - what constitutes a style, and how to manipulate them.
Which put me in mind of a focus topic I forgot to suggest, but probably ought to: blurbs. We post and crit on OWW (that's the Online Writing Workshop, http://sff.onlinewritingworkshop.com) with the express purpose, for most of us, of improving our writing and snagging some publication credits. Blurbs fit into that purpose because they are, at their most simple, marketing tools.
A writer needs to know what to respond when someone asks what their book is about, especially if said someone is an agent or publishing type. We need to be practiced in that definition so that, even when frazzled by being face to face with literary luminaries, we can still stammer out the sentence or two that encompass the heart of our book(s).
Blurbs aren't as easy to put together as they sound, either. On one of my writing lists, the Jenny Crusie Cherries list, we did a round of blurbs last winter that was very instructive. I came away with a terrific blurb for Cavalier Attitude that I fully intend to use when I finally get this rewrite done and can begin marketing my work for real.
Now I just need to remember to mention it to Charlie, or one of the other OWW folks he has minding the focus list, so we can run one of those after the style focus is done.
