Category Archives: Writing

Writing

Editing my Novel (Again)

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In the past few weeks I’ve been working on editing my novel. Yes, the one I said I was starting to edit a year ago. The one I finished writing almost two years ago. It’s called Turn Left at the Blacktop and you can read a woefully unedited version online (I blogged it as I went, which means it’s not in a very readable format—don’t say I didn’t warn you).

It needs a fair amount of work, from re-working plot lines to making characters stronger to making descriptions more memorable and less cringe-worthy (my default for showing emotion seems to be: “She smiled.”). It’s hard work, especially when you spend days writing a 5-page scene full of sharp dialog that really hums, only to realize you need to rip the scene in half and move the dialog around. It eventually feels like improvement, but it’s that eventual part that’s hard.

At this point I’m dedicated to finishing this thing. I have a vague goal of finishing it before November so I can take part in NaNoWriMo 2008, both to meet my wife’s stipulation that I can’t start a third novel without finishing one of my first two, and to continue a tradition of writing a novel in even numbered years. But I’m not sure how realistic that is.

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Writing

Unclear Writing: What Does That Even Mean?

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Here’s a real life writing example from the ‘what does that even mean?’ file:

“Mike’s personal history and present ministry evidences in The Foursquare Church indicate his unique gifting and calling as regarding his new pursuits among us.”

It comes from a Foursquare news release from a few months ago about a staff change. The quote comes from the president, Jack Hayford. Unfortunately I didn’t have the power to rewrite that line and make it a little more sensible (I tried).

Pastor Jack (as the Foursquare insiders call him) is a well liked guy. But sometimes I have no idea what he’s talking about.

Business & Marketing, Writing

Pick Your Words Honestly

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I have a client that needed to cancel an event this week. But that’s not how they’re phrasing it. Instead of canceled the event was withdrawn.

What does that even mean?

I understand what they’re up against. They don’t want the negative connotation that goes along with an event being canceled. Unfortunately, there’s nothing you can do about that. The next best thing you can do is to reschedule an event. But if you have to cancel an event, just say that. The clarity and straight-forward approach will mean something to people. They’ll see you’re an organization that can admit its mistakes.

But if you have to withdraw an event, well, that’s another story. First people will pause and try to figure out what that means. Who withdraws an event? They’ll sort it out, eventually, and then they’ll wonder why you phrased it so oddly. They’ll quickly see that you’re trying to put a positive spin on the cancellation, and they’ll realize you’re trying to be a PR huckster. You just lost a notch of respect.

If you have potentially negative news to break, don’t be a spin artist. Play it straight. You’ll communicate more clearly and your audience will respect you for it.

Writing

Writing Bad Copy

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While writing ad copy for a missions organization tonight I almost wrote the phrase “missionary position” in an entirely non-sexual context and for a moment didn’t realize how bad that would have been.

Then I realized it and wondered if I could get away with intentionally using the phrase “missionary position.”

Then I wondered if any missions organization would ever intentionally use the phrase “missionary position” and pull it off.

Books, Writing

79% of Books Sell Less Than 100 Copies

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Some depressing stats for writers from Chris Anderson’s The Long Tail:

In 2004, 950,000 books out of 1.2 million tracked by Nielsen BookScan sold fewer than ninety-nine copies. Another 200,000 sold fewer than 1,000 copies. Only 25,000 sold more than 5,000 copies. The average book in America sells about 500 copies. In other words, about 98 percent of books are noncommercial, whether they were intended that way or not. (page 76)

Those are kind of sobering numbers for anyone who wants to write a book. On the bright side, if you can sell 100 copies or more of your book, you’re in the top 21% of the publishing industry. The bar for success if fairly low, if you look at it from that perspective.

Company News, Writing

Blacklisted for Church Marketing Sucks

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I’ve been blacklisted because of the word ‘sucks’ for the first time since starting work on Church Marketing Sucks more than three years ago. OK, so ‘blacklisted’ may be a bit harsh (but it makes for a good story). In reality one of my clients will no longer publish my work because of my involvement with Church Marketing Sucks, specifically because of the use of the word ‘sucks.’ You can decide if that warrants the word ‘blacklisted’ or not.

It wasn’t a personal thing and I don’t know enough details to take it personally. ‘Sucks’ is a controversial word (especially in conservative circles) so this wasn’t exactly a surprise. The bigger surprise might be that it took three years. (Check out my defense of the word ‘sucks’ if you agree I should be blacklisted.)

If anything, I’m bummed that I won’t have further opportunities to write for this client. You always hate to lose clients as a freelancer. And this one, well, sucks because I enjoyed the projects I had done for them. I was hoping to do more.

Oh well, that’s how it goes. Things may change in the future, so we’ll see what happens.

Books, Writing

Interview with Christa Ann Banister

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Around the World in 80 Dates: Confessions of a Serial Dater by Christa Ann BanisterSo apparently friends publishing novels is a trend. Another writer friend, Christa Banister, has a new novel coming out next week, Around the World in 80 Dates: Confessions of a Serial Dater. Christa was my editor when I wrote reviews for CCM magazine, then she joined the freelance world and now lives within a mile or two of me in St. Paul (and we have still not met face to face).

I think I had heard about her novel-publishing success but had forgotten about it. Then something referencing Christa and her novel came across my desk and I realized another friend was about to be a published author.

So I thought we better put Christa through the ten question grill:

1) Your first novel–wow. What’s it feel like to accomplish every aspiring writer’s dream? Has it always been your dream to write fiction?

To say it’s surreal is probably the biggest cliché in the book. But that’s exactly how it feels to me. Ever since I read my first Judy Blume book, Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing, back in elementary school, I thought making up characters and storylines would be the best job in the world. But of course, you can’t snap your fingers and get a book deal, so I feel extremely blessed that NavPress enjoyed my work and wanted to publish my book. In fact, when I received my final copies of Around the World in 80 Dates the other day, I still freaked out a little. I knew I’d done the work, but I still couldn’t believe I was holding my very own novel in my hands. It was such an amazing feeling.

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Internet, Writing

Is Click Here the Best Text to Make You Click Here?

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You’ve got to be kidding me. A pro copywriter is arguing that ‘click here’ is the best text to use to tell someone to, well, click here.

For years I’ve been avoiding the inane ‘click here’ like the plague because it’s archaic (we’ve had the Internet for nearly 15 years, I don’t think we need to be told how to use it anymore), it’s condescending (you don’t know how to use the Internet, so I’ll tell you) and it’s not helpful (what am I actually clicking here for?).

Plus, the always controversial usability guru Jakob Nielsen suggested so in Designing Web Usability where on page 55 he writes:

The oldest web design rule is to avoid using “Click Here” as the anchor text for a hypertext link. There are two reasons for this rule. First, only mouse-using visitors do in fact click, whereas disabled users or users with a touch-screen or other alternative device don’t click. Second, the words “Click” and “Here” are hardly information-carrying and, as such, should not be used as a design element that attracts the user’s attention.

Nielsen suggests linking the most important words that actually describe what you’re linking to. That’s why I linked the title of his book, instead of ‘click here to buy Nielsen’s book’.

Sorry Mr. Pro Copywriter. I just can’t click here.

Writing

Editing My Novel

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Editing My NovelA few days ago I dusted off my latest novel, Turn Left at the Blacktop, and started editing it. I haven’t touched it since finishing it for last year’s National Novel Writing Month, but I thought it was time to take it up again (also, I’ve been told I can’t start a third novel until I finish one of my first two).

So far I’ve only read through it once and made comments and corrections, which is arguably the easy part. But it was a lot of fun. I actually laughed while reading it and found myself working on the manuscript any chance I had. It’s far from good and needs a lot of work–some sections made me groan but there were a few sections that really hummed (which made for a pretty uneven experience).

I’m not sure where I’m going with this. With the whole adoption plan in motion we’re trying to find extra cash anywhere we can and publishing a literary novel isn’t exactly the road to riches. But for some reason I still feel a push to get it moving. At the very least I could self-publish it like I did with Downtown Dandelions and maybe sell a few copies (I think I made $50–see, it’s the road to poverty). The money doesn’t really matter–I just want to do something with it.

But anyway, that’s where Turn Left at the Blacktop is. If you’d like to read it the woefully unedited version is still up in blog form, though it is pretty painful. Writing a novel in a month is a good recipe for typos, missing words and clunky text. But I’d be grateful for any feedback.

Writing

How Many Spaces After a Period?

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It’s been an issue of great debate in both my professional and personal life: how many spaces should you put after a period?

Some people prefer two spaces, some prefer one. You can read all sorts of background and history and opinions on this.

But it comes down to this: two spaces is a relic from the days of typewriters. It’s no longer necessary in today’s world of word processors and can actually muck things up. It doesn’t even transfer to the Internet–HTML actually ignores more than one space in a row. You have to force HTML to display two spaces by entering code for a non-breaking space, and that’s way too much work.

So please. Stop with the two spaces. I know you learned on a typewriter (like me) and a teacher hammered it into habit. But that doesn’t make it right. At the very least stop insisting other people follow your out-moded style. It’s about as effective as using whiteout to fix mistakes on your screen.

Thanks. I feel better now.