Monday, March 17, 2014

Monday's Links to Writing & Marketing Blog Posts

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By: Nat Russo

I know what you're doing. You're sitting there staring at your laptop screen. Your're probably making this face:

And you're getting nowhere. If this is you, keep reading. There are three things you can do right now to fix your manuscript problems.

Step 1: Quantify the Problem

Those of you who have followed me for a while know that in addition to being a writer, I'm also a software engineer. Software engineers—the good ones at least—are big on process. Software engineering, on the other hand, is big on bugs. It's inevitable. We put a bunch of smart people in a room together and have them develop elaborate computer program designs. What could go wrong?

For starters, those "smart people" all have the same trait in common. They're human. Humans make mistakes. More so, it seems, when a computer is involved.

There's a truism in software development: we cannot fix a bug unless we can reproduce it. It's just that simple. Anything else is a guess. An educated guess, perhaps, but a guess nonetheless.

In other words, we must first know what is wrong. I'm not talking about the effect. I'm talking about the root cause. What you may not realize is that this also holds true for writing. You can't fix it if you don't know what's wrong.

You may not be able to determine this yourself. If you're beating your head against the monitor and you just can't figure it out, don't be afraid to share it with a trusted reader. An objective person may be able to shed some light on it for you. But know this: until you know specifically what is wrong, you won't be able to fix it. So ask for help if you need it. The sooner the better.

Step 2: Develop a Plan of Attack

Read the full article HERE!
~*~

If you missed my writing & marketing tweets and retweets yesterday, here they are again:
  1. One Scissor? http://ow.ly/uCyOt Daily Writing Tips
  2. Three Important Steps to Building a Killer Tribe | Goins, Writer http://ow.ly/uCQBS
  3. Lessons Publishers Can Learn From Harlequin’s Annual Results | The Passive Voice http://ow.ly/uD0tu
  4. Writability: Discussion: Do Short Chapters Make You Read More? http://ow.ly/uD18d
  5. The Handwritten Note http://ow.ly/uDnIr Daily Writing Tips "The Handwritten note stands out like a raven in the snow."
  6. Writer Unboxed » Seasonal Writing Disorder http://ow.ly/uDpIH
  7. Publishers Weekly Ignores The Real Scandal At LA Times Festival of Books | David Gaughran http://ow.ly/uDpTx
  8. BookMarketingBuzzBlog: Book Marketing Twitter Toolkit http://ow.ly/uDq1o
  9. Amazon looks to pump up Kindle sales with monthly payments | The Passive Voice | http://ow.ly/uDqcA
  10. Building a Wordpress Author Website in 6 simple steps http://ow.ly/uDqml
  11. 10 Powerful Tips to Increase Fan Engagement on Facebook http://ow.ly/uDqCR
  12. A Writer's Journey: 3 Easy Steps to Fix Your Manuscript http://ow.ly/uDqTR
  13. Online Content Generation: Minute By Minute - Heidi Cohen http://ow.ly/uDr0s
  14. Alexandra Sokoloff: Groundhog Day: Full Story Structure Breakdown http://ow.ly/uDtMS
  15. What I Learned About Networking at AWP « WriterlandWriterland http://ow.ly/uDtUr
  16. The New Publishing Platform on LinkedIn: Why You Should Care and How to Contribute | Authority Publishing | http://ow.ly/uDtYM
  17. Anne R. Allen's Blog: Are You Ignoring This Simple Platform-Building Tool? How to Comment on a Blog http://ow.ly/uDub2
  18. Smashwords: Indie Ebook Author Community to Earn More than Traditional Ebook Authors http://ow.ly/uDud7
  19. The Varied Emotional Stages Of Writing A Book « terribleminds: chuck wendig http://ow.ly/uDNKm
  20. Fiction University (The Other Side of the Story): Testing...Testing...is This Query On? Diagnosing Problem Stories http://ow.ly/uDOTW
  21. The Changing Role of Literary Agents and New Submission Guidelines: Read Before You Query (or Self-Publish) http://ow.ly/uDUGL
Happy writing and running, Kathy

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