I Won NaNo!

6 December 2009

Firstly, my apologies for having been absent for yet another month. I've been in hospital yet again, but I'm back home now, and hopefully won't have to go back to hospital in years.

Now for some good news: Despite having been in hospital, I still got my novel - 50,000 words - written in November, and for the first time in my life, I became a NaNo Winner.

This year, I wrote my novel in Dutch, and that might have been the reason why I finally succeeded. Even though I speak English (almost) fluently, writing in my native language is still just that bit easier.

Even though I reached my goal of writing 50,000 words, the novel isn't quite finished yet. As I wrote my novel at top speed, I had to leave some blanks, but that's alright. I'll be using December to fill in those blanks. Next, I'll put my manuscript in a drawer and not look at it anymore until February, when I'll start revising.

NaNo Fever - and two more articles

5 November 2009

I'm seriously ill, and I'm afraid I won't recover from this illness until the end of this month. I'm suffering from NaNo Fever. NaNo Fever, as you may know, is a seasonal disease that afflicts many thousands of writers every year during the month of november. It's also a very contageous disease, but - and this is very important to know - it only ever hits writers. Other people have so far remained immune to the virus.

What happens when someone is ill with this terrible NaNo Fever, is that he or she will feel compelled by forces as of yet unknown, to write a full lenght novel (50,000 words at least) during the month of November. They start with a completely new story. A blank piece of (virtual) paper. Then they'll write like crazy until by the end of November they have reached their goal and written their novel. It doesn't matter whether it's good or bad. All that counts, is that the novel gets written.

I promised myself I wouldn't allow myself to catch the NaNo Fever this year, but alas, it hit me all the same, and now I'm a little over 10,000 words into my latest new novel.

Meanwhile, I am not allowed to slack on my other writing tasks. I will still have to write one article a day, and update my main blogs three times a week.

My latest new articles, EMDR, Effective Treatment for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and How to Stay on Top of Your Laundry have been published at ScribeSeeker.com the other day.

Salvatore Publishing

2 November 2009

Today, when I logged in to my favourite writer's forum, the first post I read was one informing us that Salvatore Publishing, the publishing house that was going to publish my first novel and some of my short stories, has ceased to exist.

The owner of Salvatore Publishing wrote in a statement:

"Sadly, due to the current economic climate, the Salvatore Publishing website has now ceased to exist. Unfortunetly, Salvatore is no longer in a position to accept submissions from authors and there will be no more titles published under the brand. The books that have been published over the last 12 months will remain in the market place and available for purchase on Amazon and other internet retailers until such a time that the individual authors decide to source alternative publishers. Author's rights and royalties will not be affected by this decision."

I can't honestly say I didn't see this coming, as I did notice some of the early signs last summer already, but still, it saddens me that Guy and his crew have been beaten by the economy. I wish things were different, but they aren't.

I'm going to have to find myself another publisher now, and I'm not exactly looking forward to that. But it's all in the game, isn't it? I can do one of two things: Give up or keep on trying. I guess I'll be going for the latter.

New Articles

1 November 2009

Last week I've had five articles published on ScribeSeeker, a relatively new site article directory.

• The Story of Hanukkah
• Best Hanukkah Presents Under $10
• Woman in Style
• Veganism - What is it, and why do people go vegan?
• Preventing Eating Disorders

I'm already working on some more articles, so keep coming back for more. I'll soon have more articles on several different topics published.

The importance of goals

28 October 2009

Over the last months, I haven't been very productive. There were reasons. Real reasons. I've been ill and in hospital for quite a long time. There were also excuses. Things like being busy - yeah, right. Busy doing nothing?

The illness aside, what was the real reason for my lack of productivity? Would you like to guess? I'll leave some blank space here, so you can think about this before reading on.

...

...

...

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OK, here's the real reason:
Lack of planning.
I hadn't set myself any goals, apart from this very vague goal of wanting to write and earn money with my writing. Can you see what's wrong with that?

I knew I wanted to write - but how much did I want to write? One article a day? One article a month? No articles at all, but only fiction? Did I want to write every day, or just when I felt like it?

And how about the money? How much money did I want to earn? $1 a month? $100 a month? $1000?

What I really needed were goals. Specific goals. And that's what I'm doing now. I'm setting myself some specific goals.

Instead of saying I want to write, I now committed myself to writing at least one article a day. I'll do this for six days a week, since I don't work on Shabbat. I also decided I will update my main blogs at least three times a week. That is very doable.

As for the money-thing: I haven't been able to specify that one very much yet. This is because at this moment I don't know how much is realistic. However, by the end of this year, I should be able to set myself a realistic goal about my earnings as well.

Birth

25 October 2009

One of my poems, Birth, has been published to Authspot today.

photo by Inferis
This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 2.0 license.

Paid Writing Opportunities

23 October 2009

For those who want to make money with their writing, here's some paid writing opportunities.

• Top Five Websites That Pay You to Write
• Working at Home: Simpler than you think
• Perspectives Magazine - pay: $20 per story
• ScribeSeeker.com - Write for Pay, Read for free
• ProBlogger

And last but not least: DRT Press is seeking personal essays written by parents of children with ADD, ADHD and/or other mental, emotional, and behavioral disorders for a book about the experience of parenting children with such conditions, for publication (expected) in January 2011.