07.18.10
Posted in Journal at 1:46 pm by Administrator
Sometimes I ask myself if Nigeria is the real cradle of civilization. After all, it does seem that all of us have at least one wealthy relative living there, though perhaps ‘had’ would be more appropriate given we only find out about them after their passing, when we inherit their massive fortune. All we need to do is pass on our full name and bank account details…
I have recently been promised fortunes from long lost relatives all over the world. Just today I discovered poor old long-lost-uncle Ali in Hong Kong kicked the bucket and I’m his sole heir (don’t know quite how I managed to shoulder my parents out of the way). Luckily I had my email address publically displayed on my website so they could easily find me to give me the good news. In fact most of my junk email comes from my publically displayed email address.
So how do you make yourself accessible to your readers without drowning in spam (yes, any promised fortune IS spam)? Easy, when displaying your contact details remove things that a computer can read, and replace them with something only a human can read. Put square brackets around the parts of your email address that are not words, and turn those same parts into words: natalie[at]nataliejepotts[DOT]com –I am sure this is not foolproof, but it will cut out a huge chunk of junk from your inbox.
You are probably wondering why, if I know the secret, am I still getting the promised fortune emails? The truth is I love these crazy emails, so I haven’t changed my clickable email address on my site. I have a Russian bride email that makes me laugh out loud every time I read it. There is a lot of material in these scams which is begging to be turned into a story, and that quirky almost Yoda-esque English they often use sets off my imagination like you wouldn’t believe.
Besides, I’m a struggling writer. I could do with a huge fortune! I’d better contact Uncle Ali’s lawyer and find out if there is somewhere I can send a wreath or something.
Happy Writing, and NO you do NOT have a relative in Nigeria, at least not a wealthy dead one that you didn’t know about!!!!!!!!!!!!
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07.14.10
Posted in Journal at 5:00 pm by Administrator
Having recently signed up to Twitter I am now getting a nightly dose of publisher and writer ‘Tweets’, the thing is, I’m not quite sure what it’s all about. Let’s face it, when you only have 140 characters to play with you can’t exactly give a preview of your next novel.
Many of the writers I am following talk about what music they are listening to and what they are making for dinner. Is this what followers want to read? And if so, how harshly do they judge a writer on their music or meal choices?
Then it occurred to me; maybe these glimpses into ‘real’ life are just an extension of the writer’s work? Maybe they are all made up? If I tweet that I’m listening to Duran Duran or Adam Ant, not only do I give away my age, but I lose credibility with the younger readers (and probably many of the older ones as well). Should I instead claim to be listening to a cool Indy band? Better yet, make one up!
And when I tell everyone that I’m slipping into the kitchen to knock up dinner, do I admit the truth, that it is tuna mornay again, or do I go for something exotic that makes me look both open-minded and well travelled? Will I offend if I eat meat? If I don’t eat meat?
Do I have to create a fictional version of me?
I’m still undecided about all this, hence my nine tweets so far have related to good articles I have read or announcements that my blog has been updated. I will ponder this some more while I slip into the kitchen to whip up a slime and tofu salad for dinner while listening to this great new Indy band, the philosophical androids. Tweet.
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07.07.10
Posted in Journal at 8:38 pm by Administrator
Recently I have found myself getting into lots of conversations about ‘what you would do if you didn’t have to work.’ I know, for me it is obvious; become FreeCell champion of the world and get a few novels written on the side, but for others it spans from the mundane to the entirely fanciful, but everyone has something they want to do.
The common thread, whether it be learning a new language, a new skill, or indulging in an artistic pursuit, is that they are putting it off until they ‘have time’. The truth is none of us have time other than that which we make. We push so much into tomorrow that by the time we get there, it is full.
This isn’t intended to be a lecture post, but it is an observation that has been really present in my life recently, and it is related to the risk taking I spoke of a few weeks ago. It is easy to fall into the monotony of our lives and lounge there, we do not challenge the status quo often enough. Don’t wait for tomorrow, grab your passion, and make some time for it now.
So tonight I’m going to take that story that has been kicking around in my head and I’m going to put it on paper. So it’s a short post today, because I’ve got to do some writing.
What are you going to do?
Nat
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06.27.10
Posted in Journal, Writing at 12:37 pm by Administrator
I don’t think there is such a thing as shameless self-promotion for anyone who is serious about selling anything to the public. In a world of tweets, Facebook updates and iEverything it is only with self-promotion that you can hope to stand out from a very noisy crowd. The days of being the reclusive writer who never ventures out are gone. Now you need to understand and leverage off media other than just books or even traditional print.
Here is a great example of what I am talking about:
This is a book that is being released on July 1st by Kirstyn McDermott from my writers group. I love this idea of a movie-like trailer for a book, and had already scripted one for my own book Paragon (yet to be picked up, so if you are in the market for a post-apocalyptic YA novel, please contact me). Little did I know that people had already carved out careers creating these things!
So now for a little self promotion of my own… I have just opened a twitter account, so if you would like to follow me, please just look for ‘nataliejepotts’ and I promise I won’t tell you when I’m getting myself a coffee or going to bed. It will be writing stuff only!
On the writing front; I have a short story in Aphelion (June/July edition), so read it here for free until mid next month. I also have a flash fiction piece coming out in the Short & Twisted anthology – volume 3, being launched today.
So, now all I have to do is finish building my new website, learn how to eBook my novels and create my book video for YouTube. Hmm I’d better get moving if I want to have something to show you by next week!
Happy writing,
Nat
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06.13.10
Posted in Journal at 11:04 am by Administrator
Following on from J K Rowling’s excellent speech (see previous post) I have been thinking a lot about taking risks over the last week. It is so easy to look back on the past risks of successful people and dismiss them as being minimal. But the truth is it takes a brave person to turn their back on safe and head into the unknown.
Every time you send out a manuscript you are taking a small risk. You are putting your work out there and seeing if someone likes it enough to publish it. You risk being told you can’t write, you risk being told your story is lame, you risk being told to give up. But these are all very small risks, and if you can’t take these, then you have no place in the world of publishing.
It is becoming apparent to me that these days if you want success in publishing, you need to take bigger risks. You need to fund your own marketing, you need to be prepared to get out there and push your book, you need to become more IT savvy.
I’m ready to take those risks, so to that end sometime before the end of this month I’m going to move my website and blog from my current ‘copy-paste’ templates to a new platform that I design and maintain. So please stick with me, there may be glitches, I may lose all my current content, but keep checking back if you suddenly find that I’ve gone off line. I will be back!
And do stay tuned, I have some exciting big risks coming up and I would love to bring you along for the journey. Life belongs to the brave, and I’m at the point where the fear of everything staying exactly the same has finally outweighed the fear of failure.
So let’s take part in a challenge, do one thing this week that you are afraid of, and please tell me about it. I’ll do something too, and it won’t just be turning off my website template. Let’s be brave together!
Happy risk-taking!
Nat
Taking risks, if Little Chef can do it, so can we;
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05.09.10
Posted in Journal, Writing at 5:55 pm by Administrator
We all partake in a little bending of the time-space continuum now and then; where an hour at work takes three times as long to pass as an hour at home. I was well aware of this phenomenon, but until recently had no idea the extent to which it pervades our lives.
Nearly two months ago I made the move from part time to full time work. To spice things up my day off each week usually occurred on either a Tuesday or Thursday, which meant I had a ‘mini’ weekend during the week. This addition of quality me time, which always included at least two hours of proper writing, meant my week went for twice as long. It is only now, as I watch five days of my life blur away each week that I find myself asking ‘where the hell has the first half of 2010 gone?’
This dilemma has sent me to the only place I know to seek answers; Excel. I did some very scientific calculations (complete with graph), and discovered that over a 45 year career, given the above phenomenon, you are only likely to experience about 15 years of life (holidays, public holidays and weekends). That seems like a bit of a raw deal.
Of course shortly someone will pick up one of my novels and I will be able to spend all my time doing something I love (I’m referring to writing, NOT playing FreeCell), but for everyone else trapped in this real life matrix, is 15 years enough? I’ll leave you to ponder that as I start working on my letter to request part time hours again…
Nat
PS I did try to insert my fantastic 3-D pie chart, but even after putting it through Photoshop I couldn’t make it compatible with the blog software, so you’ll just have to imagine it!
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05.02.10
Posted in Journal, Writing at 10:49 am by Administrator
When in school, our teachers always told us to write what we know –meaning we should write our real life experiences. Having a natural bent towards speculative fiction, I didn’t have much one on one time with vampires, flesh eating nematodes or alternate realities. So I just dismissed this advice as not being applicable to me.
That was until yesterday.
For the first time in my life I went horse riding where I actually got to hold the reigns and tell the beast where to go. Now it is true that horse riding has not starred much in my stories, but I’ve seen enough movies to know they are placid, big, dumb creatures without a thought in their heads, only too keen to do our bidding as our knee clamps and reign pulling dictates. This rule, my friends, is false. It only applies in TV-land.
Mum, if you are reading this, skip the next two paragraphs… I got the trotting bob thing down pat, I was directing my horse like an extra from The Man from Snowy River, it was easy, just as I expected. Then we got to the beach. Turns out my horse did have a mind of its own, and in that mind waves were scary. The waves yesterday were BIG. My horse went from a walk that was barely enough to hint at movement to a full gallop. No, there was no trot and the ‘canter’ thing was completely bypassed. We went from standing still to full gallop in one quick splash of a wave. Did I mention I’ve never ridden a horse before?
Now it didn’t take me long to realise I had lost complete control of the animal and that my fingers were slipping from the death-grip they had on the saddle. And between the blessed moments of logic which told me to take my feet out of the stirrups before I fell off and when I actually went through with the plunge down to the gloriously soft sand, I had the thought that it wasn’t meant to go like this. What was that based on? The rules of TV land!
So now I am bruised, but fully functional, and also aware of three things that I will keep in mind when writing about horses; 1. You can never trust the creature to do what you tell it, 2. You must always be on the lookout for that moment of rebellion, with a plan to counteract it, and 3. When you fall off a horse you do not simply get up, brush down you jodhpurs and pop back up again ready to sword fight or run down some rogue; it hurts and it freaks you out!
So maybe those teachers (and countless ignored-till-now writing books) do have a bit of a point. When you write, if you are basing your logic or assumptions on something you have seen in fictional TV shows, no matter how heavily ensconced in the law of TV land, do some research and find out if it is true. After all, how often do you hang up the phone without saying goodbye?
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04.11.10
Posted in Journal, Writing at 9:33 pm by Administrator
It seems like everyone I know has recently started a blog. Most of us are trying to stick to a theme (mine is meant to be the journey of a writer, just in case you’ve missed that). But about six weeks into it you suddenly find you are writing about your cat, your impending high school reunion, or your inability to embracing the move from daylight savings time. The theme gets a bit lost. So when is it okay to deviate from your theme?
As I said in an earlier entry, every action in a writer’s world can be put down as gathering material, likewise all writing can be passed off as ‘exploratory creativity’ –but when does a blog move from sharing your views on a theme to gratuitous ‘me-ism’? And does it matter? After all, would readers rather hear about my success on Saturday when I forced myself to sit at the computer until I wrote a page and actually ended up with five (true story). Or would they rather read about the challenges in making six fingered gloves, complete with false fingers, so I could attend a ‘P’ party as a person with Polydactyly instead of a pirate (of which there were eight).
The first story, while it gives me the warm-fuzzies and fits well with my theme, won’t ring many people’s bells as a story. Conversely, the six fingered gloves have nothing to do with writing (despite the apparent benefits, they didn’t improve my typing speed) but probably piques more interest.
But I think it is important to keep with a theme, so here is my writer-ly advice for this week; write. Sit down, allow for no excuses, and put words on the page. It has always been my last line of attack when I don’t want to write, and it always works. Only once you have those precious (even if they are crap) words in the computer can you waste your time on other endeavours, like building six fingered gloves.
Happy writing!
Nat
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04.04.10
Posted in Journal at 7:00 pm by Administrator
Isn’t it funny how you can have something taken from you, and at the time you miss it keenly, begrudge the injustice of your loss and fondly remember a time before it was stolen. But then much later, upon its return, you find you have moved on. You no longer miss it, indeed you resent having to make the room in your life to fit it back in.
Today the powers that be returned the hour they took from us at the start of daylight savings. They intentionally gave it back on a Sunday so that we could crow excitedly about the extra hour in bed that is free of guilt or consequence. But today the sun will set an hour earlier, which when I go back to work next week will herald the beginning of my vitamin D deficiency with no foreseeable cure much before October.
I just have to face it… Winter is on its way. I write much more in winter, in no small part because the computer keeps my lap warm in much the same way as a cat does in a non-rented household. But I would still like to give back my hour and come home in the daylight. I wonder if they are open to negotiations?
Nat
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03.14.10
Posted in Journal, Writing at 5:15 pm by Administrator
I had big intentions of writing lots of great stuff today. But then this glorious Melbourne autumnal day snuck up on me with its luminous blue sky, perfect temperature and sweet-caress breeze, and next thing I know it is 5pm and I’ve done almost nothing at all.
The birds were singing, calling me out to play. The bugs (while avoiding the afore mentioned birds) also knew the day was grand enough to warrant rubbing their legs together, or wobbling their bums or doing whatever it is that bugs do to make their ‘isn’t it a great day’ noises. It seemed that everything that could herald a beautiful day was doing so, and who was I to ignore this? Isn’t this, after all, what life is all about?
But here is the fantastic thing about being a writer; even when I’m being as lazy as can be, when my biggest act of writing for the day is to push out these 386 words for my blog, even if I was to watch back to back episodes of Oprah for the entire day (which on a day as beautiful as this one would be nothing short of a crime against nature) I get to put it all down to gathering material.
So I gathered material while reading a book in the sun, then I went down and gathered some more material over a yummy lunch at a cafe in Camberwell. After that I strolled down to the shops, gathering material at numerous retail therapy outlets, before concluding with a walk home (via the long way), with much material gathering occurring along the way. And just when you thought that I would not be able to fit any more material in, I gathered six games of FreeCell material before opening Word to write this blog entry.
So you can see, so far I’ve dedicated this entire day to writing. One could argue that I’ve even earned a break! Okay, that might be pushing it. There are still a few good writing hours left in the day, I might get that next chapter started yet… But the sun is still out, maybe I should go for just one more walk? The cats come out about now and they do enjoy their belly rubs…
Nat
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