Tag: word

Nom de Plume [Pen Name]

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[found on rachellegardner.com]

“Should I Use a Nom de Plume?

The question of whether to use a pen name comes up frequently among writers. People wonder what kinds of circumstances might dictate using a pen name, and how to choose one.

There are several legitimate reasons to use a pseudonym. You simply may not like your real name, or it doesn’t fit the genre in which you’re writing. Your employer may not want you known as an author, or your profession may demand your anonymity. (People who work in the mental health field are a good example of this.) Your real name might be the same as a celebrity’s or someone whose name has a negative connotation. Or you might write in more than one genre and use different names for each. (If you’re an unpubbed writer, you don’t need to be worrying about this one yet. First things first. Get pubbed in one genre.) Also, Kristin Nelson recently pointed out on her blog that if there’s a chance you could be job hunting, you may want to write under a pseudonym because potential employers might be scared off if they Google you and find your books. (They’ll think you’re not going to be committed to the job if your writing career takes off.)

If you’re choosing a pseudonym, you may want to choose something close to your real name, such as your first and middle initials along with a variation of your last name, but you’re not limited to that. Keep in mind real-world issues like where your books will appear on a shelf and what famous authors your book might be next to. Even more importantly, choose a name for which an Internet domain is available, and make every effort to ensure your name is not already being used by a celebrity, another author, or a porn star. Search the name in various spellings, using several search engines, to verify.

Finally, if you’re just starting out trying to get an agent and/or publisher and you’ve settled on a pen name, you can, if you like, start right from the beginning doing all your correspondence with that name. Get your email address in that name and identify yourself that way. You don’t need to tell an agent it’s not your real name until they offer representation; and the only time you’ll ever need to use your real name is on contracts. (Other agents disagree with this; I think it’s your choice. See Nathan Bransford’s great post on contradictory advice.)

What about platform? If you’re blogging, obviously the blog will only function as part of a platform if it’s written under the same name that will appear on your books. Now, most of what I’ve said about pseudonyms applies best to fiction. With non-fiction, it may be quite different since non-fiction is much more platform driven. Your platform is most likely already established under your real name so a pseudonym may not be an option. If you’re hoping to write memoir under a pen name to avoid hurting people in your life who appear in your book, be aware that simply using a pseudonym won’t avoid all potential legal, ethical and/or relational issues that could arise.”

[found on http://www.rachellegardner.com/2010/09/should-i-use-a-nom-de-plume]

Time Wibbly-Wobbly Management

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[found on entrepreneur.com]

Practice the following techniques to become the master of your own time:

    1. “Carry a schedule and record all your thoughts, conversations and activities for a week. This will help you understand how much you can get done during the course of a day and where your precious moments are going. You’ll see how much time is actually spent producing results and how much time is wasted on unproductive thoughts, conversations and actions.
    2. Any activity or conversation that’s important to your success should have a time assigned to it. To-do lists get longer and longer to the point where they’re unworkable. Appointment books work. Schedule appointments with yourself and create time blocks for high-priority thoughts, conversations, and actions. Schedule when they will begin and end. Have the discipline to keep these appointments.
    3. Plan to spend at least 50 percent of your time engaged in the thoughts, activities and conversations that produce most of your results.
    4. Schedule time for interruptions. Plan time to be pulled away from what you’re doing. Take, for instance, the concept of having “office hours.” Isn’t “office hours” another way of saying “planned interruptions?”
    5. Take the first 30 minutes of every day to plan your day. Don’t start your day until you complete your time plan. The most important time of your day is the time you schedule to schedule time.
    6. Take five minutes before every call and task to decide what result you want to attain. This will help you know what success looks like before you start. And it will also slow time down. Take five minutes after each call and activity to determine whether your desired result was achieved. If not, what was missing? How do you put what’s missing in your next call or activity?
    7. Put up a “Do not disturb” sign when you absolutely have to get work done.
    8. Practice not answering the phone just because it’s ringing and e-mails just because they show up. Disconnect instant messaging. Don’t instantly give people your attention unless it’s absolutely crucial in your business to offer an immediate human response. Instead, schedule a time to answer email and return phone calls.
    9. Block out other distractions like Facebook and other forms of social media unless you use these tools to generate business.
    10. Remember that it’s impossible to get everything done. Also remember that odds are good that 20 percent of your thoughts, conversations and activities produce 80 percent of your results.”

[found on http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/219553]

On just sitting down and doing it…

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“Don’t just plan to write—write. It is only by writing, not dreaming about it, that we develop our own style.”
-PD James
-found on http://99u.com/articles/7082/25-insights-on-becoming-a-better-writer

Me, Myself, and I…No, REALLY.

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[found on adulted.about.com]

Me and Tim, Tim and I

    • Wrong: Me and Tim are going to a movie tonight.
    • Right: Tim and I are going to a movie tonight.

Why?

    • If you take Tim out of the sentence, “you” are the subject.
    • You are going to a movie. When you’re going to a movie, what do you say?
      • “I am going to a movie.”
      • You wouldn’t say, “Me am going to a movie.”
    • When you add Tim, the sentence construction remains the same.
    • You’re simply adding Tim, and it’s correct to say the other person’s name first.
      • “Tim and I are going to a movie.”
[found on http://adulted.about.com/od/howtos/tp/fivegrammartips.htm]

If It’s Passive—Pass it…

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[found on hamilton.edu]
  • Passive voice produces a sentence in which the subject receives an action.
    • In contrast, active voice produces a sentence in which the subject performs an action.
  • Passive voice often produces unclear, wordy sentences,
    • whereas active voice produces generally clearer, more concise sentences.
  • To change a sentence from passive to active voice, determine who or what performs the action,
    • and use that person or thing as the subject of the sentence.
    • PASSIVE voice:
      • “On April 19, 1775, arms were seized at Concord, precipitating the American Revolution.”
    • ACTIVE voice:
      • “On April 19, 1775, British soldiers seized arms at Concord, precipitating the American Revolution.”
[found on http://www.hamilton.edu/tip#Writing%20for%20Clarity]

Pre – Positional Is Where a Preposition Lives

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[found on grammar.about.com]

“Like adjectives and adverbs, prepositional phrases add meaning to the nouns and verbs in our sentences. There are two prepositional phrases in the following sentence:

The steamy air in the kitchen reeked of stale food.

The first prepositional phrase–in the kitchen–modifies the noun air; the second–of stale food–modifies the verb reeked. The two phrases provide information that helps us understand the sentence.

The Two Parts of a Prepositional Phrase
A prepositional phrase has two basic parts: a prepositionplus a noun or a pronoun that serves as the object of the preposition. A preposition is a word that shows howa noun or a pronoun is related to another word in a sentence. The common prepositions are listed in the table at the bottom of this page.

Building Sentences with Prepositional Phrases
Prepositional phrases often do more than just add minor details to a sentence: they may be needed for a sentence to make sense. Consider the vagueness of this sentence without prepositional phrases:

The workers gather a rich variety and distribute it.

Now see how the sentence comes into focus when we add prepositional phrases:

From many sources, the workers at the Community Food Bank gather a rich variety of surplus and unsalable food and distribute it to soup kitchens, day-care centers, and homes for the elderly.

Notice how these added prepositional phrases give us more information about certain nouns and verbs in the sentence:

      • Which workers?
      • The workers at the Community Food Bank.
      • What did they gather?
      • A rich variety of surplus and unsalable food.
      • Where did they gather the food?
      • From many sources.
      • Who did they distribute it to?
      • To soup kitchens, day-care centers, and homes for the elderly.

Like the other simple modifiers, prepositional phrases are not merely ornaments; they add details that can help us understand a sentence.

PRACTICE: Building with Simple Modifiers
Use adjectives, adverbs, and prepositional phrases to expand the sentence below. Add details that answer the questions in parentheses and make the sentence more interesting and informative.

Jenny stood, raised her shotgun, aimed, and fired.
(Where did Jenny stand? How did she aim? What did she fire at?)

There are, of course, no single correct answers to the questions in parentheses. Sentence-expanding exercises such as this one encourage you to use your imagination to build original sentences.”

Common Prepositions

Screen Shot 2013-06-16 at 6.58.48 PM

[found on: http://grammar.about.com/od/basicsentencegrammar/a/prepphrases.htm]

A dash of Em— A dash of En–

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[found on makeuseof.com]
“Stop avoiding dashes in your writing just because you don’t know how to type them outside of word processors. Learn the proper keyboard shortcuts and you can type these essential parts of the English language in basic text editors, browsers and anywhere else you may need them.
 
The en dash (–) is my favorite piece of punctuation–it’s perfect for inserting points, like this one–but I’ve been neglecting it in my writing for a couple of years, for a really dumb reason. What’s my dumb reason? I’ve stopped using Word and Open/Libre Office. I know their shortcut for an em dash–type two dashes between two words and they will transform once you type a space after the second word.
 
I stopped using word processors when I started writing for the Internet, however, because they add a bunch of nonsense code to my writing. But outside programs with their own shortcut, I never got around to learning how to write em or en dashes. This means the text editors and browsers I now do my writing in are dashless wastelands. There are online tools for creating em dashes, and I’ve resorted to Googling “en dash” and copying the resulting punctuation, though
Not anymore. I’m going to stop restructuring sentences out of laziness, and I’m going to help you do so as well. Here’s how to make your favorite punctuation on your favorite operating system. Keep reading!

Create Em and En Dashes On A Mac!

First up: the easy one. Apple’s operating system OS X comes with a couple of keyboard shortcuts that make typing em and en dash a snap.
    • For an en dash (–), use “Option” and “-”.
    • For an em dash (—), use “Option”, “Shift” and “-”.

Create Em and En Dashes on Windows!

Windows users can easily make an em dash if they’re using Word: just type two dashes between two words, as I explained above. Outside of Word, however, the story is different: you need to use four digit alt codes. You’re going to need a keyboard with a number pad for this–the block of numbers to the right of the arrow keys:

Laptops without physical number pads can occasionally use the “Fn” key and some letter keys instead of a number keypad–search your keyboard for blue numbers. Lacking that, you may be out of luck.

    • To create you dash, first put your cursor where you’d like it and hold down the “Alt” button. Now you need to type a four digit code:
      • 0150 for the en dash (–)
      • 0151 for the em dash (—).”
[found on http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/type-em-en-dashes-word-processor]

Bitter writer? Or Better writer?

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[found on goinswriter.com]

“Anyone who writes is a writer, but that doesn’t mean they’re a very good one. So let’s talk about how to become a better writer. We’ll begin with the basics — here are seven key lessons:

    • Writing is simple, but not easy.
    • Before you get a larger audience, you have to get better.
    • Practice makes you better; it’s the repetitions that make it effortless.
    • Until you put your work out there, you’re only screwing around. Write for real.
    • You can’t practice without discipline. Keep showing up and persevering.
    • There will always be resistance; type through it, anyway.
    • Get over your excuses and do the work.”

[found on http://goinswriter.com/writing-tips]