Twitter Here I Come!

Over the last few months, I have come to realize that if I want to stay in the game in the writing world, I need to develop some social skills - social media skills that is! Hence, my reasons for creating this blog that you are reading.

My new social venture is getting acquainted with Twitter. Like this blog, I am not quite certain what I will 'tweet' (boy, I hate that word!) but I am hopeful that it will come together at some point and I will discover a reason for all this blogging and tweeting. I have come a long way since last year when I could not remember the name of the website and kept referring to it as Tweeter instead of Twitter. Now, I have it all figured out, you create a twitter account and post daily tweets for your followers to read. Not sure why anyone would care what I am doing at any given moment; my life is not that interesting - quite boring actually!

So bear with me, as I muddle through the schematics of twitter, learn about hash tags, figure out how to post a tweet via my cell phone, learn how to entice people to follow me and discover that at some point, I will be rewarded for mastering Blogspot and Twitter.

In the meantime, follow my tweets at Twitter.com. You can find me at: @latenitewriter.

Mid-Winter Getaway to My Happy Place

I am back after taking a wee hiatus to spend some time warming up in sunny Florida. The weather was simply spectacular with full sun and temps in the low 80s. With the hubby and two teenage boys in tow, we headed south to regroup and rejuvenate from this never-ending winter.

Our first excursion was to St. Cloud where we embarked on an Ecosafari. It was a two hour ride in a covered wagon through a nature preserve. En route, we saw lots of alligators (big mama and her babies), native Floridian birds, deer, turtles and lots of small wildlife. Unfortunately, the infamous Florida panther that roams the preserve was a no show but it was still enjoyable. The place also offers two other options to explore the 1500 miles of wilderness: horseback or via zipline. The boys are planning on doing the zipline excursion next time we are back in the area.

Our next major outing was to Clearwater Beach, almost two hours away.  The day was misty and overcast so we decided to nix the suntanning and take a leisurely walk along the shore. I was surprised at how fine and white the sand is in Clearwater. In Cocoa Beach, on the  Atlanta side, the sand is dark and coarse. We walked along collecting more shells to add to my collection and proceeded to walk the wooden pier that spans across a couple hundred feet of the ocean from the shore. As we got to the end, much to our delight, a pair of dolphins jumped out of the water! With cameras ready to aim and shoot, we waited for the perfect shot. Although the dolphins did reappear numerous times, it was pretty much impossible to catch them mid-flight with a regular digital camera. The images of seeing these beautiful creatures in their natural surroundings will be one that will stay with me for a long time.

The last highlight of our trip was the launch of the Discovery shuttle. Although the shuttle was launched from Cape Canaveral, it could be seen from where we were in Kissimmee however, it was somewhat overcast and I couldn't get a glimpse of it through the clouds. The hubby and firstborn son had gone to the market to pick up some groceries and reported that they saw it whilst they were loading the groceries in the car. Lucky them!

Although we haven't been back home for a full week yet, I am wishing I was back in Clearwater Beach watching the dolphins jump out of the water.

Until next time...think spring!

Calling All Short Story Writers

Good Day Fellow Writers and Avid Readers!

If you reside in Ontario, Canada, The Toronto Star Newspaper has announced its annual 2011 Short Story Contest. This contest is open to all Ontario residents over the age of 16 years. There is no entry fee and the prize breakdown is:

1st Prize
 $5000 plus the tuition fee free for The Humber School for Writers Correspondence Porgram in Creative Writing

2nd Prize - $2000
3rd Prize - $1000


Entries must be received by February 27, 2011. Winners will be declared on April 15, 2011

Please visit the link for further information:
The Toronto Star Short Story Contest

 I found this good article on how to increase your chances of winning a short story competition. Before you enter any short story contest, gain some valuable tips to increase your chances of success:

Short Story Competitions: Increasing Your Chances of Wnning
http://www.writerswrite.com/journal/mar98/keegan6.htm

Until next time...good luck!

The Ultimate Non-Paying Writing Gig

As a freelance writer, I have seen alot of writing scams but I think I have seen the lowest of the low today. Whilst I was researching exercises that will help sciatica (been suffering lately with it), I was directed to a website for women`s fitness. As usual when I have stumbled across a new website, I checked their article submission guidelines. The article submission guidelines tried to entice the writer by stating that their submission will  "reach out to potential customers and change their life for better. You can now reach out to millions of women all over the world and help them make better choices through our paid article submission service."

Fair enough, some individuals have a passion and want to share it with others however, when I got to the bottom of the submission form, I noticed the payment button. This website wanted the writer to 'pay' to submit their article on their site. It was a nominal charge but still this is absolutely ridiculous! This goes back to my previous blog that explains when a writer provides free content to a site that will generate revenue from that said article, the writer is enabling the website owner to prosper and the writer gains very little other than some exposure if the article is linked back to the writer's personal website and the website visitor actually clicks on it.

On another note, I submitted an article query to a prospective market and I got excited when I received a quick response. The editor informed me that he had visited my website and blog and admitted that his publication did not pay contributors. He expressed interest in my article but could only offer me a bio and a link to my website. He acknowledged that I probably would not be interested in this type of compensation. Although he was correct in his assumption, I was thankfully that he was upfront with his compensation policies and let him know that if he changed his policies to contact me. Although his payment policies didn't match my expectations at the present time, things can change. No point in burning bridges when you may cross the same bridge at another time.

Until next time...happy writing.

What's On Your BookShelf?

I never really thought much about it until a friend noticed that I had a stack of books sitting on the end table in my family room.

"How many books do you read at one time?" She asked.

I replied that it depended on what I was reading. If I was tackling one of the great literary classics, I am usually reading two books at the same time for the reason being that time may not permit for a 'heavy' literary read but something light will suffice if I want to read a few pages before bed or I have a free moment or two. (Coincidentally my 2010 new year's resolution to read all the great literary classics has spilled over into 2011 and no doubt will continue into 2012).

Presently, I have 4 books on the go. I started reading Tatiana De Rosnay's, A Secret Kept, after reading her other novel, Sarah's Key. I enjoyed Sarah's Key immensely and was anxious to read another of the author's works. Unfortunately, A Secret Kept, reminded me so much of the first one with its infusion of French words and notable famous French landmarks, that I lost interest midway through. Next, I picked up a 'cheapy' read off the discount table at my local bookstore; The Letters by Luanne Rice and Joseph Monninger. Unfortunately, with the busyness of the holiday season, I only managed to read the first few chapters, however, this book shows some promise so I will get back to it at a later date. It is not a literary masterpiece by any means but I think it will be an enjoyable read.

On boxing day, I couldn't resist a visit to my local bookstore and got a deal on Richard B. White's, Mr. Shakespeare's Bastard. I had been eyeing this one for a couple of weeks and was happy to get a copy on sale. I have been reading this one steadily for a couple of weeks and enjoying it. Of course, as my usual style, I am eager to finish it and move on to another book; almost done and will cross the finish line by the weekend.

A couple of weeks ago, I discovered Google Books and a whole slew of free literary classics. On my lunch break at work, if time permits, I will engulf myself in the online version of Charles Dickens' Great Expectations. This is a quite a long book to tackle so I am somewhat happy to read it online where it is broken down into small pages of print.

What is your reading style? Do you read one book at a time, or have many books on the go?
Drop me a line and let me know what you are presently reading.
Until next time...happy reading!

Find Jobs on Twitter

The other day, I read an article about finding writing jobs via Twitter. The article stated that there were job opportunities for writers on the twitter network; jobs posted by other twitter subscribers. Personally, I do not have a twitter account nor am I too familiar with it so I cannot say whether the claims were true or not. Truthfully, I have been known to call it tweeter not twitter until I was politely corrected by my two teenaged sons.

I did some research and discovered how to look for jobs on twitter so I guess it is a start if you have been trying to access job postings on twitter. To view job postings, go to twitter.com, in the search box enter one of the following :

@Microjobs
#tweetmyjobs
#job
#jobs
#hotjobs

A list of job tweets will appear. You can also use a variety of key words to search such as freelance writing jobs, writing jobs, etc. This will produce a whole slew of results which will direct you to other twitter postings.

While I was researching job hunting on twitter, I came across a few articles that I found somewhat informative:

The Beginner's Guide to a Job with Twitter
http://jobmob.co.il/blog/beginners-guide-find-a-job-with-twitter/

12 Tips to Finding a Job On Twitter
http://www.penn-olson.com/2009/09/14/12-tips-to-finding-a-job-on-twitter/#

If you have a twitter account, and have mastered finding writing jobs, please drop me a line and let the rest of us in the secret to searching for writing jobs (or any kind of jobs) on twitter.

Until next time....keep writing

Don't Write for Free

I saw a job posting for writers to write website content, and the ad stated that the gig was paying $5.00 for 500 words. I get myself worked up when I see ads like this. It would take at least an hour to write a 500 word article even if a half hearted attempt was put into the task considering the ridiculously low pay. You can find these ads all over the web on a variety of sites including some bidding sites.

I understand that some new writers will jump at the opportunity to write something and get paid for it regardless how pathetic the pay is, However, if you feel the need to write and publish for little or no pay, consider writing for a local community group or non profit organization instead. You will gain the experience you need to move forward in your writing career and be offering your services to a worthwhile cause at the same time. This is a win win situation for all involved.

Unfortunately, when you decide to write for $5.00 for 500 words, the end user (your customer) has paid alot less for your work than what it is worth and will be profiting from your content.  When your carefully created content is published on their website, your content will draw visitors to the site when a search engine picks up keywords in your article.  Your customer is hoping that once the site visitor is browsing through their web pages, somewhere down the line, they will profit by selling the visitor their products or service. So in the end, your customer has got some great marketing content for next to nothing and as long as it is on their site, being picked up by a search engine, your customer has a steady flow of potential visitors/customers to their site. Why write for practically free and let someone else earn money from your efforts?

If you really want to start earning revenue from your writing consider these options:

• Learn to craft a quality query and submit it to paying print and online publications and websites. Refrain from submitting to those that pay less per hour than you are willing to work for.
• Sites like www.constant-content.com attract buyers who are looking for content for their website. You write your article, set the price and post it at Constant Content. It may sit on the site for awhile but many writers contribute to this site and other similar sites and consider it 'passive revenue."
• Have some business cards printed and hand them out everywhere. Also, consider placing a small classified ad online or in your local newspaper. You may be surprised to find yourself writing content for a local business or group in your area.

Until next time...write, rewrite, query and submit!

Aspire to Write?

Many individuals dream of writing whether it be a simple poem, the next great novel to be awarded a prestigious book award or to be featured on Oprah Winfrey's Book List. However, a common complaint amongst those who aspire to write is that they cannot find anything to write about.

Most experienced writers have learned that one must use various sources of inspiration to help them create their works of art. You may argue that you cannot find anything that will spark the creative spirit in your soul but think again. Inspiration can be derived from the simplest of pleasures:

Ø      A early morning walk around your neighborhood

Ø      A unexpected sunset or vibrant sunrise

Ø      A look from a stranger

Ø      A touch from your significant other

Ø      Rage over an injustice

Ø      The sound of a pounding rain

Ø      The quiet of the midnight hour

Ø      The chatter of a toddler

Ø      The giggle of a group of school girls

Ø      The clickety clack of your keyboard

Ø      A longing, a love, a hope.

  

The possibilities for inspiration are abundant and readily available if you seek beyond the mundane of everyday life. The key to finding inspiration is to break down an event, experience or emotion and focus on that single aspect. If it is a great fiction story you are after, dig deep in your past, examine the present or look into the future. For poetry, let your emotions run high and embrace your tears, laughter, fears, happiness, grief and sorrows. Write it when the moods strikes - do not sit on it or the inspiration will fade.

The great writers, both past and present, knew this and wrote when the inspiration struck them regardless of the place or time. Follow in their footsteps; this is the stuff great literary works are made of.

Until next time..keep writing

Literary Classics: Alive and Thriving in my Computer

It has been said that great readers make great writers; I would somewhat agree with this statement however, not all book lovers aspire to write. Unfortunately, in a world of digital electronics and advancing technology, the English language has been sacrificed. Transmission of the written word via email, texting and twitter has pretty much butchered the language into 4 letter words sans vowels, punctuation, and proper sentence structure.

Last year, I decided to take it upon myself to revisit the classics and read the great literary works of Leo Tolstoy, Charles Dickens, and Mark Twain.  Somewhere along the way, I missed reading them in high school; perhaps I found the smoking area more interesting!

So throughout 2010, I tackled Leo Tolstoy's, Anna Karenina - all 850 pages of it. Next I read, Agnes Grey by Anne Bronte and will soon immerse myself in D. H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover. Currently I am making my way through the free online version of Great Expectation by Charles Dickens. Many of the classics are available online for free because their copyright has expired. A copyright expires after 100 years and the content becomes public domain thus Google and a few other sites offer the classics for all to read. I am not exactly sure how it got there, but my online version of Great Expectation is stored nicely within the confines of my gmail.com email account. When I visit my 'books', it comes up automatically to the last page that I read. How cool is that?!

Although I have somewhat veered off topic, the point I am trying to make is that the classics are beautifully written; the sentences are long, flowing, dramatic and descriptive. However, in this modern environmentally conscious and digital era, it is a distinct possibility that some of the classics would have been passed over by the traditional publishers for being too wordy, long and drawn out and too costly to produce. Likewise, if the book was written for exclusively for the web, the writing is too 'loose' and rambling and would not hold the reader's attention for long because writing for the web differs greatly than writing for print. Studies have proven that Internet surfers only read the first few paragraphs of a body of text that is posted online and do not read each word but rather scan down the screen picking up words and ideas.  Web writing is written in a very tight and concise manner to pack as much into a paragraph as possible to accommodate the Internet surfer's online reading behavior.

When my sister found out that I was ploughing through the classics, her first question was 'why'?  As I explained to her, for whatever reason, I missed reading the majority of them the first time around in high school and to be great writer, one must be a great reader of the literary giants. I wanted to absorb myself in the prose of previous eras and literary works that differ so greatly from the great authors of present day.

If you are interested in reading the classics, visit these sites:

Google Books

Project Gutenberg

*Note: Some sites offer the books in a variety of formats suitable for various portable readers.

Until next time...happy reading...

The Elephant in the Room

I have been mulling over an idea for a writing project; it will be a fairly time-consuming undertaking. I have had the idea stuck in my mind for over a year now..it comes..it goes..but it always comes back. The weather was going to pretty frigid here over the weekend so I decided I would tackle the first outline of the writing project because I knew I wouldn't want to be going outside or running errands.

So there I sat at my computer on Saturday morning complete with flannel bathrobe and slippers, determined to get the outline completed. It wasn't easy. I found myself wandering away from my computer more than once to tend some menial task like loading the dishwasher. At one point, I found myself heading upstairs to have a shower before it dawned on me that I was doing that 'thing' again. That 'thing' that I do so well is the fine art of procrastination.

After finding myself on the staircase, I turned around and headed back to my office and sat back down in front of my computer. I repeatedly told myself that I would reward myself with a nice, hot shower after I completed my outline. With a bit of encouragement from my boys (they let me read my outline to them), I had the inspiration that I needed to work through the first draft of my outline and be on my merry way.

I am excited that the first very rough draft of the outline is done and I am feeling energized to work on it more but I will let it rest for a few days. Procrastination is a horrible thing but if you set your mind to it, you can work through it. Unfortunately, for budding and established freelance writers, procrastination is like the elephant in the room; you know it is right there distracting you from your work but you can't seem to get around it. Sometimes, you just have to sit yourself down and work through it in order to get done what you set out to do.

How do you handle procrastination...drop me a line and let me know!

Until next time...ciao

Expanding Your Writing Horizons

As a writer, it is easy to get stuck in a vacuum; playing it safe by writing what you know and are comfortable with. This psychology may work in the beginning but as your writing journey continues year after year, the market changes and you may need to develop writing skills in other areas to sustain your freelance writing activity.

A fiction writer may be horrified at the thought of writing non-fiction likewise a non-fiction writer may be lacking in skills to create a short story. However, it is necessary as a writer to try all different types of writing in order to keep the creative juices from becoming stagnant and to increase your money making abilities.

I am a non-fiction article writer for print and online markets and have written on numerous subjects but always return to my 'comfort' zone which is careers and health and wellness. As the recession lingers on, I have come to realize that I am trying hard to sell my ideas by pumping out more queries than before but unfortunately, I am selling less of my articles and at a lower rate.

An opportunity may present itself in the near future which involves some copywriting for a large organization. With my copywriting experience seriously lacking, I find myself scouring the net looking for self directed tutorials to help me along this new path. At some point I may find myself seeking more in-depth copywriting instruction and will consider taking an online copywriting course complete with an instructor to guide me and mark my progression. In the meantime, I am working through the site below which offers a self directed tutorial of sorts. I hope you will find the link helpful if you are looking to improve your business writing skills.

Quantum Copywriting

What is your writing genre? Feel free to comment!

Until next time...ciao

Late Night Writer Welcomes You....

Hello Aspiring Writers!

Welcome to the first official blog post of Late Night Writer. Ok, I confess, I had originally created Late Night Writer a few years ago on another blogging platform but the concept of blogging was fairly new and truthfully, I don't think I was ready to commit to it. A couple of years older now, and I have come to realize that if I am to increase my success as a freelance writer, I must develop my social media skills beyond Facebook.

I tried my hand at freelance writing years ago, before the onslaughter of the internet. It was a cumbersome process that required the writer to send away for submission guidelines for a prospective market via regular postal service. God forbid you did not include a self-addressed stamped envelope (SASE)! The wait for those said guidelines could be anywhere between a couple of weeks to a couple of months. Once received, and query crafted and sent away once again with another SASE, the wait began.

A response, if any, was pretty unpredictable as to when it would show up if it at all. If the response was favorable, then the writer was instructed to send the finished manuscript complete with another SASE! This is where it got tricky, if you were sending your work outside your own country then you were required to include an International Reply Coupon (IRC) which enabled the recipient of your correspondence to purchase postage at their post office to send your stuff back to you. Needless to say, my very first attempt at freelance writing was a big flop. It was hard to keep up the momentum when you were waiting up to one year to hear back regarding your query or manuscript.

Years later, after I purchased a new computer and got online, the internet opened up the freelance writing world to me. Ten years later since that glorious day, I am an active freelance writer and have penned over 500 articles on various topics for markets throughout Canada and the U.S.

The journey towards financial freedom through my freelance writing efforts has been long but exciting. I still get a thrill when I sell an article especially if it is to a new market  that I had been trying to crack. My writing portfolio includes columnist, articles, web content, reviews, newsletters, news abstracts, press releases, resumes and everything inbetween. The road has been varied but the satisfaction that I derived from my writing is immeasurable.

What about you? What's your story?

Until next time, ciao!