Tag: 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

TOOLS OF MY TRADE: #5 PHOTOSHOP

I’m too cheap sometimes to invest even in my own career, especially when it’s for something I believe I can do myself. Now sometimes you have to go to a pro, and sometimes you don’t. I suppose you have to trust your own instincts or trust that your friends will tell you when that is the case. So far no one has said to me, “Cat, you ever think of hiring a cover artist?” so I’m going to make the assumption I’m doing at least okay on my own. The tool I use to create banners out of the bookcovers done for me by the talented cover artists paid by my publishers, as well as the actual covers I create myself for my self-pubbed titles is Photoshop. Here are 2 banners I created from my Samhain bookcovers. I will be totally honest, when I first purchased Photoshop it was an exercise in frustration. I was totally lost. Even now I know the program is capable of doing so much more and I am barely scratching the service with my incredibly basic, novice skills. What I do know how to do I learned thanks to an old video author Mandy Roth made […]

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 […]