Writing World Newsletter Archive
***************************************************************** W R I T I N G W O R L D A World of Writing Information - For Writers Around the World http://www.writing-world.comIssue 6:06 16,200 subscribers June 1, 2006*****************************************************************SPECIAL NOTICE: Please DO NOT REPLY to this e-mail; any messagessent to the listbox address are deleted. See the bottom of thisnewsletter for information on how to subscribe, unsubscribe, orcontact the editors.***************************************************************** CONTENTS================================================================= From the Editor's Desk NEWS from the World of Writing THE INQUIRING WRITER: Are we getting jaded by the Internet? by Dawn Copeman FEATURE: Why Going to a Writers' Conference Pays Off by Susan Denney The Write Sites -- Online Resources for Writers WRITING DESK: Are Fillers Really the Best Way to "Break In"? by Moira Allen BEGINNER'S GUIDE TO... Beating Writer's Block by Dawn Copeman WHAT'S NEW at Writing World WRITING CONTESTS with no entry fees The Author's Bookshelf*****************************************************************EARN AN MFA IN WRITING through the brief-residency program atSpalding University in Louisville, KY. Call (800) 896-8941x2423or email mfa"at"spalding.edu and request brochure FA90. For moreinfo: http://www.spalding.edu/mfa*****************************************************************WRITERSCOLLEGE.COM has 57 online courses. Prices are low.If you can reach our web site, you can take our courses.http://www.WritersCollege.com*****************************************************************DISCOUNTED SOFTWARE FOR WRITERS -- PowerWriter, DramaticaPro,StoryCraft, WritePro, MovieMagic, StyleWriter, plus many more.HUGE SAVINGS! GREAT SELECTION! Save online at:http://www.MasterFreelancer.com*****************************************************************THE WELL-FED WRITER by Peter Bowerman - Learn how you can make$50-100 an hour as a freelance writer and easily earn $1000 aweek or more working 2-3 good days. Details:http://www.writingcareer.com/pb001.shtml*****************************************************************LAST YEAR I WAS GOING THROUGH A BITTER DIVORCE... I needed timeto rest and heal. So I only wrote one week each month; I made$105,453.83. This stress-free business I'm in is America's bestkept secret. I invite you to join us. We may hire you ourselves.http://www.thewriterslife.com/dm/wworlda6***************************************************************** FROM THE EDITOR'S DESK=================================================================So What's My Excuse This Month?-------------------------------Sheer exhaustion, that's what! I've just completed a marathontwo-week editing stint... on my husband's new book! While hefrantically pounded out the last chapters on his downstairscomputer, I read them, red-penciled them, and finally sat down tomy upstairs (laptop) computer to input my editorial changes andthose suggested by another reviewer. The subject? "InformationOperations Planning." Sounds a bit "writerly" but it actuallyhas to do with planning information operations in wartime (andpeacetime). Fascinating stuff; some chapters were 70 pages long.Patrick was so happy to finally get it finished that hecelebrated the three-day weekend by writing a paper...Changes Coming to the Website...--------------------------------As part of my grand scheme to spend more time writing and lesstime HTMLing, I decided at the beginning of the year to updatethe website only once a month (in conjunction with thenewsletter). However, I realized that this gives readers noincentive to VISIT more than once a month -- so I've decided togo back to the "old ways." Beginning in June, instead of postingthree or four articles all at once at the beginning of eachmonth, I'll be posting a new feature every week. Each month'snewsletter will include a list of the features posted thepreceding month. I also hope to launch a weekly (or at leastbiweekly) online editorial, as I'm finding that the monthlynewsletter format doesn't give me nearly enough opportunity torant, muse, and otherwise pontificate on some of the issues thatkeep cropping up in the publishing business. It will also giveme a chance to muse, ramble, and otherwise "go on and on" aboutthe writing life in general and my writing life in particular.And that being said, let me launch the column with my own answerto last month's question as to whether writers are getting"jaded" with the Internet!Have We Changed How We Use and View the Internet?-------------------------------------------------It occurred to me after I asked this question that I have been"involved" with the Internet for almost precisely a decade. Itwas in 1996 that I began to get involved with the Inkspot website-- and began writing about the "relationship" between writers andthe Internet. Needless to say, a great deal has changed!For example, around 1996 or 1997, I tried to pitch anInternet-related book to Writers Digest Books. They weren'tinterested. Why? Because, they told me, they really didn't seewriters getting that "involved" with the Internet! Anotherpublisher, who was handling my pet book, turned down my offer toset them up with a free book catalog site online, because theydidn't think that pet owners were going to be involved with theInternet! (So much for the vision thing...)If you've been "online" for the past decade or longer, you canprobably remember those heady days when everything seemed new andexciting. In those days, I wrote articles that used lots ofphrases like "for the first time, we can..." We could findinformation on just about any subject in the world withoutvisiting a library. We could talk to writers around the worldwithout paying for a stamp -- or for a long-distance phone call.We could participate in a writer's group without leaving ourliving-room. We could subscribe to free writing newsletters thatare packed with more (and more current) information than most ofthe paid subscription magazines. Best of all, we could send ourqueries and articles directly to an editor by e-mail, saving onpaper, stamps, and those annoying post office lines.The ether buzzed with promises of future benefits for writers aswell. E-books, we were told, were going to, at long last, levelthe playing field for writers who didn't have the clout orconnections to get noticed by "big commercial publishers." Sincee-books cost so much less to create and distribute, e-bookpublishers would be able to afford to take on less profitable(but no less worthy) authors. At least one article confidentlypredicted "the death of paper" by 2005. E-book publisherssprouted like weeds, and most got weeded out.All this excitement ultimately led to the dot.com feeding frenzyat the end of the 1990's -- a frenzy that was bound to bust.When it did, it took down some wonderful sites along with it,including Inkspot. It was from the ashes of Inkspot thatWriting-World.com was born.As we entered the new millenium, however, I think the excitementwas beginning to fade. Instead of promises, we found ourselvesfacing threats: Viruses, worms, and the ever-increasing tide ofspam. Writing groups became embroiled in flame wars, andsometimes perished. For many, the convenience of being able toorder practically anything online became offset by fears ofidentity theft and credit card fraud. The tone of much of thecorrespondence I received at this point was not of excitement butof fear: People were afraid to sign up for a newsletter becausethey thought it would open them up to more spam, and manywouldn't even open an e-mail for fear that reading a message froma stranger would infect their computer with a virus.Writers who dreamed of achieving fame and fortune through e-booksdiscovered that the majority of readers still preferred to curlup in a comfortable chair with a cup of coffee and aperfect-bound chunk of paper. I've lost track of the number ofcompanies that have promised to bring out the perfect e-reader,or some form of "electronic paper." Nor has it helped writers tohave those same old mega-publishers jump onto the e-book wagon --hijacking it into yet another means to reap greater profits forby publishing the same big-name writers and charging the samefees. (I did find it amusing to read an article in whichpublishers were trying to rationalize high prices for e-books byclaiming that their greatest cost was ROYALTIES, when for decadesthey've been telling authors that royalties have to stay lowbecause of the high cost of PRODUCTION.)But beyond the issue of "fear" (viruses, fraud, identity theft),"annoyance" (spam, virus hoaxes, popup ads) and "disillusionment"(a dwindling electronic marketplace), I think writers have foundthemselves facing another Internet-related burden: Overload. Ibelieve there is a tendency for just about any technology tobegin as an opportunity -- and to end up as an obligation. Takethe telephone: At first it offered a wonderful new way tocommunicate with someone instantly, even if they were miles away.But eventually it became something that one felt obligated toanswer, even if one was in the middle of dinner or a show orwhatever. If your sister called to lament her woes for an hour,you felt you had to listen -- even if you were an hour away fromdeadline. Worse, it became (like the Internet) a tool fortelemarketers, scammers and predators.In the early days, I found it exciting to log on and find 30 or40 e-mails in my inbox from writers and readers around the world.But over time, the burden of answering that many e-mails everyday began to eclipse the excitement. The fact that one could nowcommunicate with practically anyone in the world at the speed oflight now meant that one was considered OBLIGATED to do so -- andpeople could get downright hostile if you didn't answer them in a"reasonable" amount of time (i.e., five minutes ago).We also began to suffer from "information overload." How many ofus are able to simply throw away magazines that we subscribe to,without reading them? Yet now we are faced with a hundred timesas much information those print publications provided. Could weafford to ignore it? If we didn't "keep up," would it jeopardizeour ability to compete in the marketplace? It was nice to getone or two high-quality e-mail newsletters each week; it becameoverwhelming to get ten or twelve, many of them mediocre orsimply rehashing the same subjects (and markets).Finally, I think we all have increasingly begun to suffer fromthe plague of the 21st century: TOO MUCH TO DO. I have yet totalk to anyone who feels that they have fewer demands on theirtime than they did five years ago. And this, too, I believe isrelated to the "opportunity becomes obligation" tendency oftechnology, especially "time-saving" technology. There's the oldadage, "a penny saved is a penny earned." But a minute savedisn't a minute that we can put away into our personaltime-savings account. It's a minute someone else wants from us.The fact that we CAN do things at the speed of light means thatwe are now EXPECTED to do things at the speed of light. The factthat we can accomplish ten tasks in the time it once took toaccomplish two doesn't mean that we have 80% more leisure time.It means that we now have eight more tasks to accomplish. Beingable to do things faster means having to do MORE.For example, when most of my writing correspondence arrived viathe postman, handling that correspondence took about an hour aweek. Today, handling e-mail correspondence can take an hour ortwo a day. In the old days I would have considered five lettersin a single day a "flood"; today, if I received that few e-mails,I'd wonder if my ISP was down.Yet, ironically, the e-mail flow to my inbox HAS decreased,precisely because of that plague I mentioned. Even thoughWriting-World.com has more readers than ever before, I hear fromfar fewer of them -- because all of you are just as busy as I am,and a lot of you are probably a lot busier. A couple of yearsago, a survey in Writing World would have attracted dozens ofresponses; today, with 16,000 readers, we're lucky to get ten.I've noticed far fewer inappropriate submissions; I suspect thatthe would-be writers who haven't bothered to learn how to studymarkets or write a query have become disillusioned by their lackof success and dropped out of the game. And the flood of spamand viruses has definitely decreased, partly due to legislationand partly due to efforts on the part of service providers todevelop better filtering and protection tools.So, do we still love the Internet? I think we do. I certainlydo. I know I couldn't run my business without it, and that'sexactly what most of our survey respondents said. For example, Igot started working for a site/newsletter run by a publisher wholived in Canada (and whom I never even met until after Inkspotfolded); today my newsletter is edited by a woman living inEngland, whom I also have never met. Perhaps it's nocoincidence that most of the respondents to this surveylived outside the U.S., and pointed out that it really is thanksto the Internet that they are able to sustain a trulyinternational writing career.Even so, I suspect that most of us have lost some of that initialexcitement that we felt a decade ago. We no longer join half adozen discussion groups; we no longer sign up for every freenewsletter we find; and we no longer feel compelled to write (oranswer) to send out a hundred e-mails a week. But this is farfrom a "bad thing." It means that most of us are learning totreat the Internet as a tool -- and to realize that for a tool tobe effective, we must control IT rather than allowing it tocontrol US.Now if we could just do the same thing with our cellphones... -- Moira Allen, Editor***************************************************************** UPCOMING CONFERENCES AND EVENTS*****************************************************************UPCOMING TELESEMINAR: Everything You Need To Know AboutSelf-Publishing, Tuesday, June 13 8 p.m. ET Hosted by Gayle Trent(recently profiled in Woman's Day magazine)http://gayle24202.tripod.com/teleseminarsandclasses/ Also see theaffordable e-courses on novel and freelance writing!DEADLY INK - Annual mystery conference for authors and fans,short story contest, novel contest, retreats and classes. DeadlyInk Press is looking for new authors. Visit our website athttp://www.deadlyink.com or email info"at"deadlyink.comWRITERS - learn how to provide editors with exactly what they arelooking for. Even if you have no photographic experience, you canboost your income by learning how to put together your owndynamite photo essays. Join us in historic Philadelphia, June22-25, for an intensive 3-day photography and travel writingworkshop. http://www.blairhoward.com/philly.html >>-----------------------------------------------------<>-----------------------------------------------------<>-----------------------------------------------------<
Copyright © 2008 by Moira Allen. All rights reserved. Copyright to individual articles held by authors.