Category: writing romance

Writers' Tools of the Trade, writing romance

TOOLS OF MY TRADE: #7 FLIPBOARD

Though a few of my tools this week were writer focused, this one is great for anybody. My friends’ 16 year-old daughter even has it installed on her iPad so perhaps for once, I’m in with what the young, cool kids are doing instead of being a step behind. What is it? Flipboard. I love it and you will too. Check out this video to see why… [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2vpvEDS00o] So in case you can’t see this video, I’ll give it to you in a nutshell. Flipboard is an App that takes all those many different social networks we belong to and all those blogs we follow, and even blogs we don’t follow, and it compiles them into the prettiest damn digital magazine you could ever imagine. I’m serious–it’s absolutely beautiful! Who would have thought that the stream of crap that comes through my Facebook and Twitter feeds, usually in ugly lines of URLs and written text, could look like a glossy magazine you’d pay a bunch for if you bought it at a newstand? But it does. Wanna see? The first picture below is the Cover–the page that opens first when you select the App on the iPad. The cover automatically […]

Writers' Tools of the Trade, writing romance

TOOLS OF MY TRADE: #4 WRITE OR DIE

I’ve mentioned this tool before but it bears repeating. In fact, Dr. Wicked and his evil productivity tool Write or Die were in the dedication of my book RIDE I used it so much to make my deadline for that novel. You can use the lighter Write or Die online version for free, or buy  the enhanced desktop edition to install on your computer for use offline ($10 and compatible with MAC, PC & Linux). You choose your time limit (or word count) and for the duration chosen you have to continue to type into the window or it starts to “remind” you. Gently at first with flashing colors, then not so gently with horrible audio ranging from cars honking, to babies crying, to the Hansen Brothers singing. Once you start to type again, the annoyances stop too. I find I can do 500 words easily, usually more, every 15 minutes when using Write or Die. So if I set a 1500 daily wordcount for myself, I can get my work done plus extra with one 48 minute session on Write or Die. IF I can force myself to sit down and actually do it, which I generally fail to do. The concept […]

Writers' Tools of the Trade, writing romance

TOOLS OF MY TRADE: #3 TWITTER

I am a self-proclaimed promo ‘ho and proud of it. Day three of my favorite tools brings us one promotional platform I employ, Twitter. Yes, I will admit when I first heard about Twitter I didn’t get it at all. When I try to explain Twitter to my non-tweeting friends, I really can’t (in spite of my vast professional expertise as a wordsmith). So what is Twitter and why does it deserve to be named among my 7 most valuable tools of my trade? It’s a social networking site that limits user updates to 140 characters each Tweet unless you employ one of the lengthening tools (which I do sometimes, though I feel like I’m cheating when I do, LOL). It’s kind of like the user status updates you see on Facebook, but it’s a one way system. I can follow anyone I want and see their tweets. Anyone can follow me and see mine (unless I block them for being a perv or a spammer). It is not the mutual “friending” you find on Facebook profile pages. Since I use it as a professional tool, I do like the Twitter “follow” system better than the Facebook “friend” system. Now why […]