If you missed the first post on Cool Twitter Bio's, you can check that out HERE. Ahhh, Twitter! What's not to like about a social media site that allows you to tell the world what you're up to in 140 characters or less? It's cool, it's fun, and it's a great way to connect with people from around the world that you would otherwise never have the opportunity to know. Sweet, huh? But today, we're talking about the awesomeness that can be your twitter bio. My twitter bio is pretty blah, but it gets the job done. You can click on the bird above and take a look, but honestly, I could have done better, and here are several examples of people who have done just that. If you're not sure what to write, but still want to be funny and somewhat clever, you can always go this route: @josh_deforest Typical short, quirky, funny twitter bio.... OR @rogerelion (insert your favorite clever funny or deep and meaningful twitter bio here) OR @danii_kero You know what's funny about my bio? It says absolutely nothing but you can't stop reading it and you just lost 4 seconds of your life. You're welcome ^.^ Though fun, the above examples aren't as interesting or quirky as some others, but still, they are an option if you just don't know what to write. But now, it's time to dive into some really clever, somewhat disturbing, and often times belly-grabbing bios. Deciding whether these are brilliant or bizarre, I will leave up to you to decide.
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Hmmm... kissing. Most people do it. Even babies give slobbery kisses. Dogs too--if you happen to have your face at their level to be licked. It's a strange thing we do, this putting our mouths on other people's mouths (Yeah, yeah... we humans do a lot of "things" but this is a PG blog and so we're sticking to kissing for now). Writing kissing scenes in a novel is the HARDEST for me. It is. I don't write erotica or romance so I can only imagine how writing a steamy love scene would be (lots of giggling and weirdness on my part, I can only assume). Kissing is a pretty intimate thing, and to portray those feelings on paper can be quite daunting. Especially, when you've never experienced fireworks, knees quaking, or electric sparks when kissing in real life. I subscribe to Seth Godin's daily newsletter and quite often, his daily "musings" hit home. Today's advice did just that, and I felt the need to pass it along. It's THAT good. It's not about you Tuesday Writing Tip #3 (This will be a weekly feature. Check back next Tuesday for tip #4) Missed tips #1 and #2? You can find them HERE and HERE Oh, my goodness! I love her! Have you read any of her quotes? If not, I suggest you do. She's awesome. She is by far one of my favorite authors to quote. But back to this particular quote and the advice one would give to new writers...
Tuesday Writing Tip #2 (This will be a weekly feature. Check back next Tuesday for tip #3) Another way to put it:
Never fear to use little words. Big, long words name little things. All big things have little names, such as life and death, war and peace, dawn, day, night, hope, love, and home. Learn to use little words in a big way. -Anonymous Who are you writing to? Who is your audience? Once you have figured that out, then gear your writing and vocabulary to them. All writers want to sound super intelligent and mega crafty, but throwing in large pompous words can turn your audience off to your writing. No one wants that. In two more days, I will have my three children home for the summer. For the most part, I'm like, "Thank goodness! No more homework, science fairs, book reports, PTA, or painting stuff!" Yippee! But on the other hand... I have to say bye-bye to my six or so hours of ME time, which also happens to be my writing time (well, in between watching season after season of House on Netflix, but let's not go there). Still, the fact remains: When am I going to find time to write with three kids at home? What am I going to do? How can I make meeting my deadline happen? Well, I have come up with a very strategic plan. If I don't cave in, don't fold to their demands, I think I can make this work. Feel free to incorporate these ideas into your life as needed. You can make adjustments too, though I don't see where that would be necessary. Here we go: Ahhh... zombies! As an author who writes about the undead, I decided to spread the love and highlight a few zombie reads that might tickle your brain. They're free today on Amazon, but please double-check before hitting the download button. Happy reading! 635 Reviews 4.4 Star Rating Survive the infection! Survive the Infected! A new flu strain has been spreading across Africa, Europe, and Asia. Disturbing news footage is flooding the cable news channels. People are worried. People are frightened. But Zed Zane is oblivious. Zed needs to borrow rent money from his parents. He gets up Sunday morning, drinks enough tequila to stifle his pride and heads to his mom’s house for a lunch of begging, again. But something is wrong. There’s blood in the foyer. His mother’s corpse is on the living room floor. Zed’s stepdad, Dan is wild with crazy-eyed violence and attacks Zed when he comes into the house. They struggle into the kitchen. Dan’s yellow teeth tear at Zed’s arm but Zed grabs a knife and stabs Dan, thirty-seven times, or so the police later say. With infection burning in his blood, Zed is arrested for murder but the world is falling apart and he soon finds himself back on the street, fighting for his life among the infected who would kill him and the normal people, who fear him. Tuesday Writing Tip #1 (This will be a weekly feature. Check back next Tuesday for tip #2) The first draft of everything is shit. -Ernest Hemingway It is impossible to get it right the first time. This is a fact. It also something that most writers try to bypass. Myself included. We want to write it perfectly the first time, but here's the problem: First drafts are rarely perfect. Ever. But that's okay. Writing isn't like brain surgery, where we HAVE to get it right the first time. Thank goodness.
The first draft is your chance to try new things and to make mistakes. Yes, mistakes. It's okay. I promise. We need to remember that it is a FIRST draft and not a FINAL draft. The sooner we embrace that, perhaps the sooner we can get our darn book written. Stop getting hung up on the way something should "be" and just write. Get those words and ideas down. Yep, sometimes that's all there is to it. It's a matter of digging our fingernails in, and clinging to what we want with all our might, and never, ever letting go. But hanging on is hard. Especially when a great majority of us want success today. We want to see results and we want to see those results NOW, not a year from now and definitely not five years from now. We've become an instant gratification kind of people (ever catch yourself getting angry with your microwave for taking too long? It's okay to admit it. I've been there). Some people do find success rather quickly. We've seen those stories and it brings out our envious side (it's okay to admit that, too. This is a non-judgmental zone). Sometimes, people get lucky and reach their success at a much quicker rate than the norm. Good for them (I really mean that). But we should never compare ourselves to those lucky folks. We can't. They only make up a small fraction of the successful people out there anyhow. The world is FULL of MANY successful people who simply refused to give up. They didn't rely on luck, but chose to create their own. Want to know the secret ingredients for finding success? Here is the first....NEVER GIVING UP. Yep, sounds simple enough... though it can be one of the hardest things to do.
We may find ourselves hitting some walls, picking up pieces of our dreams as it crumbles around us, or fighting to keep going, but it is in those moments we need to brush off our pants and lift up our heads. It will be worth it, I promise (I really, really do). The most successful people in life are the ones who simply kept going, placing one foot in front of the other, while others choose not to. It won't be easy (sorry about that), but anything worth wanting, worth dreaming, never tends to be. That's the magic of it. Here's to clinging on when it would be so easy let go! Here's to us simple souls refusing to give up! Here's to us dreamers that know we may have a long road to climb, but are willing to climb it! *Clinks glasses with you* Now, for the second secret ingredient to finding success... GETTING TO WORK. Yep, that's it. Two secret ingredients. What were you expecting? So, what are you doing still reading this, huh? *winks* Get to work, you! Go make your own luck. Go chase that dream. Back in September I had this idea that I should go out and get a part time job. Oh, all the things I could buy--new couches, trips, all the shoes I wanted. Why not? The kids were in school, this would be great... only it wasn't. I knew after one day--yep, one day--that I had made a terrible mistake. (You can read about it here). It was at that point that I resolved to make writing, the thing I loved most, my career. I would put everything I had into it and give it my all. I would devote myself to it. Yes, the money aspect of writing comes in like a trickle (or, so it does for me right now), but I was determined to be better and do better. I knew I could do WAY better than I had been to that point--stop Netflixing around, stop hovering on Facebook, stop making excuses. Good goal, right? Well, I am weak. I am only human (see video below) But here I am, eight months later, and I am back to screwing around. How did this happen? HOW? Because it sooooo much easier to watch Youtube or hang out on social media sites than it is to sit your butt down, place your hands on the keyboard, and write. Oh, it is! I get sucked in by stupid things too like hamsters being fed tiny burritos or boys face planting it when they try to do a backflips in their graduation gown (Yes, these are real videos). WHY? What happened to my resolve back in September? It's easy to be lazy. It feels good to be lazy--well, in the moment it sure does. Lazy is easy. Working at anything it hard. I originally had a goal of writing a book by April. At least having the first draft complete. Well, it is now May. I have maybe, just maybe, half a book written. That was EIGHT months ago!!! What the heck? Time has flown by and I am no where near completing my goal. It got me thinking about that quote: If you keep doing what you've always done, you will get what you've always gotten. It's true. It's amazing how quickly we can fall into bad habits and how extremely easy it is to get in our own way. I'm sabotaging myself. Just me. No one else. I read an amazing article by Shannon Mayer about the secrets to success as a writer and how she became a successful author herself--she has come so so far since she first asked me to read and review the first book in her zombie series. You can read it here. Her point number one hit home. It actually socked me in the gut-- Write. Write a lot. That right there was the very thing I WASN'T doing. "What? You can't be an awesome writer if you don't write! Say it ain't so!" There is no way I can find the kind of success I want as an author if I don't freakin' write! It's plain and simple. So I have resolved to do better. I have to. What I'm doing right now isn't working. Not for me. I had hoped to put out at least two books this year, but because I ruined that for myself--screwing around--I will be lucky if I can get one done. That is my new goal, though. I will complete this novel and I will get it out by the end of the year. I would like to have this book written by the end of June. Yes, that is a lofty goal, especially after I have let my writing-self go, but I need to jump back on the author treadmill and push myself to do more than I have ever done. I'm flabby. I'm out of practice, but it must be done. "Come on fingers, don't fail me now!" So hang in there with me friends and fans, I promise to be better at this writing thing :) Because getting a part-time job doing something other than writing seems really, really unfun and yucky. So I am going to claim the Bob The Builder motto and do this thing. "Can I fix it? Yes, I can!" ** Yes, the irony of using TWO Youtube videos in the blog where I berate myself for wasting time watching Youtube videos has not gotten past me. But this is the last time, I swear :)
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