August in Review

August 31, 2007 by J.C. Hewitt · 3 Comments

August is just about in my rear view mirror, and I for one am happy to see it go. This month brought the death of my friend of 30 years, Tim, due to complications from diabetes. Add that to family turmoil, the writing project from hell and a nice crisp 110 degrees of heat on a nearly daily basis, and you’ve got a month I can’t say goodbye to fast enough. On the bright side, this was a pretty good month for ol’ Poewar.com. My article “Want to Write a Novel Badly? Here’s How!” went viral as we in the business say and was read a whopping 25,000 times. That is a new site record for a single post in a month. Overall Poewar.com did very well, with 112,000 page views. That is a 10,000 page improvement over last month though still a tad shy of June. A month like August is usually a pretty down month on the web. Everyone is on vacation, so I’ll stand by those numbers proudly. Stay tuned next month. I’m dedicating September to poetry. You don’t want to miss it!

Before I sign off for the month I wanted to thank this month’s commenters, for taking the time to write in. Here are just a few of the interesting things people had to say:

Mary Klaebel on 5 Ways to Start Making Freelance Money TODAY!
I hate cold calling. While I understand that it works, I prefer to use direct mail or e-mail marketing. When I market myself and my copywriting that way, not only do I save myself the gut-churning stress of cold calling, but the prospect has in his or her hot little hands a solid sample of my work. That’s just me. Yes, it’s a slower way to build my business, but slow and steady and all that…

Marjani on 5 Ways to Start Making Freelance Money TODAY!
The only part I can’t stand about freelancing is sales. But no one can own their own business if they are unwilling to be the sales team as well as the manager, director, writer, distribution, classified, and production team.

Sandra on 5 Ways to Start Making Freelance Money TODAY!
Truth be told, I would rather have to cut my arm off while dangling three hundred feet above ground pinched between a boulder and a cliff than make cold calls. But that’s just me.

Mike on Wronging Writers: Don’t Get Taken
If you got accepted by EW and you really need the money, then I advise you to try it out once with a small project and wait until they pay you through paypal (they won’t pay you through bankwire unless you accumulate at least $50 which is reasonable given the transaction fees). If you’re still sketical after they pay you for one project then you can just take a little at a time. All I can say is that they did pay me and they still do. You just really have to be worth your salt.

Kathryn on 200+ Articles for Bloggers
It is amazing how popular blogging is becoming. When all the news stories have a specialist that is there BECAUSE of his/her blog, it proves that blogging has made it to mainstream.

Doc Kane on College Majors for Aspiring Writers
…as a former academic advisor and history major (who know runs a freelance writing business covering everything from marketing to journalism), I think ANY social science discipline would be a nice addition to this list. Anyone pursuing a degree in the social sciences will, no doubt, research, write and analyze their writing time and time again to greater proficiency. Writing in these styles also helps a writer developing his/her writing chops to think beyond 500 words, and to draft material with a story in mind.

Crystalwizard on Want to Write a Novel Badly? Here’s How!
Write it backwards. Start with the ending and then add on to that till you figure out how it started.
Sprinkled lots of weird punctuation marks through the dialog.
Always make sure you never use a characters name with their dialog. Use only pronouns.
String as many sentences together with the word ‘and’ that you possibly can. Periods are extremely expensive.

Rianon Rose on Want to Write a Novel Badly? Here’s How!
Who knows how bad a book really is until you read it yourself, when you hate it you know it’s bad!! For instance, what if your main character has a love interest, then all of a sudden kills herself for no apparent reason by chapter 2. Then, say your reading a novel and you just start, when it takes 20 minutes to read the first page, you know it’s bad. Other than that you look forward to finding out if the main character is mute or not. Although you did fing out that her wardrobe is outstandingly huge and her first breath did last longer than one should. But she is excited about her first day….. Somewhere?

xexagon on Want to Write a Novel Badly? Here’s How!
i) make the bad guy’s foreign in some way
ii) make sure there is a very bad guy
iii) make sure your hero is very good at having sex, and the sex is described using tip 5 above. That way the reader feels as if s/he is also good at having sex
iv) don’t use stream of consciousness – tell the reader what the characters are thinking and why they do things
v) don’t bother describing things, just make sure things are happening all the time
vi) alternatively, describe everything in great detail, because that’s what writing is
vii) novels should be long, at least 400 pages
viii) if you’re not sure what should happen next, have someone hit your hero over the head
ix) alcohol makes characters interesting

Michelleon Want to Write a Novel Badly? Here’s How!
Follow slavishly any advice about writing that you found published…anywhere. For example, that opening sentences of bestsellers should be twelve words long and contain three adjectives, two adverbs, and precisely one comma. Or that every chapter of a mystery must end with the sleuth thoughtfully posing a long list of obvious questions: “Does the knife sticking out of Charlie really mean he’s dead? Would Agnes have run away if she weren’t guilty? And what about Naomi?” Above all, weight all advice equally, without critical evaluation. In fact, don’t even bother noting who gave the advice. Your time is much better spent writing it down so you can follow it right away.

Richard on Want to Write a Novel Badly? Here’s How!
Another one I’ve noticed, although this is more for a series of novels, is if a plotline or group of two-dimensional characters ain’t completely broken, then why fix it? You can use the same characters and plot structures again and again in novel after novel (e.g. a ritual murder, a guy in a wheelchair with secret motives, a love interest related to a murder victim, etc etc). It’s worked for Dan Brown!