Book Review: Your Child's Writing Life by Pam Allyn

Your Child's Writing Life: How to Inspire Confidence, Creativity, and Skill at Every Age by Pam Allyn

Pam Allyn is the executive director for LitLife and LitWorld, organizations that promote literacy nationally and globally. She has worked many years teaching children of many ages to write. In this book, she presents what has worked for her, along with some research on the value of writing for children of all ages.

She introduces five keys to writing for children, using the acronym WRITE. Word power is the first key. It emphasizes learning and using new words. Reading life encourages young readers to have a broad spectrum of reading--not just fiction, but other categories that will inform and challenge the reader. Identity is two-fold. First, it encompasses how the child likes to write in concrete details--where in the house, what time of day, what special writing tools (pens, pencils, paper, etc.), and so on. Second, Identity shows the style of writing, which naturally develops over time but can be quite distinctive. Time involves both finding time to write and building up stamina in writing, i.e. being able to sit and compose for longer and longer periods of time. Environment is the final key, which is the area where they write--at a desk, on the couch, under the blanket, and any other comfortable and inspirational spot they may find. So the five keys overlap a little but give some concrete steps to encourage writing.

She also has chapters focused in various challenges. One chapter goes through the various ages of children and what they may typically be doing in their writing life. Another recommends strategies for overcoming frustration or unwillingness to write. She recommends twenty children's books to serve as writing inspirations and gives fifty writing prompts to get the creative juices flowing.

The book has lots of useful tools and interesting recommendations. It also has a lot of encouraging words and inspirational stories. For me, there was too many "Rah-rah! You can do it!" parts in the book though I can see how that is appealing. The kids aren't the only ones who need encouragement.

Recommended.

Book Review: On Writing by Stephen King

On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King

Few authors are as prolific and successful as Stephen King. In 2000, he published this book, part autobiography and part writing advice. The memoir covers his early years, from childhood until he broke his addictions to booze and drugs. King does not give a thorough or strictly chronological biography but "snapshots" of moments influential in his writing. The details of his dirt poor childhood, his school life, and his marriage are interesting. Always his writing and struggles with publishing are present, giving unity to an otherwise non-linear narrative.

The second larger section of the book is devoted to the act of writing. He uses the metaphor of a toolbox to describe the various things a writer needs to be successful. He discusses the nuts and bolts like those found in Strunk and White's Elements of Style (basic grammar and style choices). He shows the importance of crafting good dialogue and building good characters. Plot is not his greatest concern in writing; he often lets the story flow naturally from the characters he's created and the interesting situations they struggle through. He's a great advocate of writing a first draft and then letting it sit for several weeks if not months. After a while, he comes back to the work fresh, probably with a better idea of the themes (which can suggest scenes or details to add) and with a better likelihood of cutting what doesn't work (after a couple of months the work is less your baby and more a work in progress that needs some trimming to make it better). King also discusses his workspace and work plan, showing how they contribute to his productivity as a writer.

The book is an easy, interesting read and very inspiring for writers. It is aimed at fiction writers, but even a blogger can find the advice and stories useful and motivational.

Book Review: Writing Down the Dragon by Tom Simon

Writing Down the Dragon by Tom Simon

Tom Simon's book Writing Down the Dragon is a collection of essays on J.R.R. Tolkien's writings and his style. He specifically looks at Tolkien's techniques for crafting stories and the various tools he uses, from ancient myths and made-up languages to resolving contradictions in texts. Simon does not claim to be definitive; he, as a fantasy writer, looks to Tolkien as an inspiration and model for writing fantasy epics. He has a lot of interesting insights and a lively writing style. Fans of Tolkien are sure to enjoy this book.

Sample Quote on how Orcs, being the evil characters they are, use morals:

Orcs have morals; they just happen to be coupled with a hypocrisy so perfect that it is essentially unconscious. Morals are a stick to beat their enemies with, never a ruler to measure their own behaviour. [Kindle Locations 1452-1453]

UK Games Expo 2013 Seminar: Kindle Millionaire

One of the seminars at the UK Games Expo was a panel discussion on self-publishing a book called "A Kindle Millionaire--Self Publishing for Authors." Five different authors who have gone down the self-publishing route told attendees about their experience writing and getting published on their own.

Several talked about their frustration with the "traditional" publishing process, where a writer finds a literary agent who shops the book around to various publishers. Finding a good, well-connected agent is hard. Often people in the industry not only send standard rejection letters; some don't even bother to reply to submissions! These reactions prompted the authors to try out self publishing.

A first step is to make an important distinction. An author needs to know whether they are getting a work published just to show off to family and friends (more of a "vanity" project) or to provide a viable and valuable commercial product. Sometimes the author can't tell till the end of the writing process,. At that point, the author needs to make a decision about which route to take. Printing a few copies for friends and family is a lot simpler than preparing a work for one or another form of mass publication.

For a commercial product, authors must have professional editing. One lady on the panel said she was an English teacher by profession and thought she didn't need an editor. She can construct proper English sentences, after all! But then she realized that being an author and being an English teacher are two totally different things, requiring different (though related) skills. Another fellow who had written some historical fiction said he went through three types of edits requiring others with more expertise:

1. A continuity/story edit--parts of the story didn't match up with other parts resulting in continuity errors that he did see after his own editing.
2. Cultural edit--one story was set in Spain, so he had someone familiar with Spanish culture read through it to see if any errors would pop up. Another author chimed in that she needed an American editor for her book when it was published across The Pond because she used a lot of British expressions that wouldn't make sense to an American audience. The example she cited was when one of her male characters put on a "jumper" which in America is a dress. "Jumper" in Britain is a sweater.
3. Proofreading edit--after all the other edits are done, a last pass by a professional proofreader is a must. 

How does one find affordable editors? Several recommendations were made. First, check with friends. One author has a co-worker who edits legal documents for a living. The co-worker did great, detailed proofreading for very little. A second option is to search the internet for editors, especially in your field or genre. Finally, books listing professional editors are available from stores or at libraries.

The second option (i.e. searching the internet) also applies for finding a printer or small publishing house that will make hard copies of a book for an author. Print on demand services are also available, allowing people to buy as many or as few copies of their book as they want. Lulu.com is a resource for self-printing, including pre-designed cover templates (though professionally designed covers are much more impressive). The books may just be to give to friends (which would dictate a short run), but several of the panel authors have been selling hard copies of their books from their homes.

Which leads into another point. With self-publishing, the author becomes something of a small business. In addition to finding a printer or processing the computer documents into an e-book format, the author also needs to do all the marketing for the book. Even with traditional publishers, authors are often involved in marketing the book but self-publishing is that much more work. Using social media like Facebook or Twitter is helpful, but it is only a part of a much larger campaign. Again, the author may be taking orders and shipping physical copies of their books to customers who don't want to read an e-book.

Speaking of e-books, the panel talked about processing a Word document into the ePub format (which most readers use) and the Amazon Kindle format. The first time is always the hardest, but the process is not too hard and comes quicker with practice. With a traditional publisher, they often dictate what software and formatting should be used, especially how the tabs, paragraphs, etc., are arranged.

The panel was very informative. Even though I am no where near publishing a book right now, it is inspiring to see that many different avenues are available and that others have met with success in non-traditional routes.

The authors on the panel (none of whom are millionaires) were the following:

• David Ebsworth
• Andy Holmes @andyholmesmedia on Twitter
• Tom Bryson who has eight steps to publish and market your book!
• Marilyn Rice
• Fiona Lundy