Z is for Zany Bloggers

I really thought I'd be blogging Z is for Zip it this post, 'cause I get a bit lazy by letter 26, and the only book I've read on the craft of writing starting with Z is Zen in the Art of Writing, but I blogged about that in the last A-Z challenge in:

Z is for Zen

But then came the Zany. Alex J Cavanaugh is hosting another (yes, another) blogfest and this time it's all about fun and games. Don't start shaking, I know what you're thinking. You'll get a rest, this is not until June, click on the linked picture to go to Alex's site, or sign up below:

Now, I intend to cash in on a few owed Zzzzzzs. 

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Y is for YA Writing

I'm very excited :)

I need to take my girls to Sydney in May for a dinosaur show, and it just happens to be the same weekend there are some great events happening for the Sydney Writers Festival!

I've signed up for a day's workshop on writing for YAs hosted by Jeni Mawter:

Acne is Optional, Attitude is Not: Writing for Young Adults

Do you try to attend workshops, or writers festivals? I get so much out of them, even if the information is not new (and there's always something new), I get so motivated to write by being in the presence of other writers. If you need an excuse here's my post:

8 Reasons to Attend Writers Festivals

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X is for Xenophobia

Xenophobia is the fear of strangers, but has come to mean the fear of any person or group that is foreign to our own comfortable assumptions. It can develop as a hatred towards races at a cultural level, or at a more micro level it could be the unreasonable hatred of people not within your social group (cheerleaders hating chess club members). 

We all make assumptions about people, that's our overactive imaginations showing they work, but how that manifests into our behaviour will reveal whether we are xenophobic. Most of our stories will have at least one xenophobic character. In my fantasy novel The Costume Maker, my trio travel to another world where they come across three very different communities, each hating the other. I'm not sure if wars start from xenophobia (or if they are more politically devised for more sinister ulterior motives), but they are certainly propelled by it. Governments have been known to use people's mistrust and fear of the unfamiliar to allow them to differentiate themselves from the target culture, the way we disassociate ourselves from a different species. I guess this just makes it easier to hate.

So who's xenophobic in your novel? Matilda just posted a book review on Paper Dolls about a novel where a family find a bunny and take it in, the suspicious cat thinks this bunny is a vampire and therefore fears it, it turns out maybe a little understanding was needed instead. Check out Bunnicula.

X also marked the spot yesterday - it was my birthday and I had some wonderful surprises. It was also sweet to see many good cheers sent my way via Facebook. Thanks Facebook, I would forget many of my own family's birthdays if it wasn't for you.

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W is for Writing Manuals

I decided for W, I would do a few of my all time favourite books on writing. If you're a regular, you may have seen them mentioned before. These are the ones I think are brilliant value for money, broken down to function or genre:

Writing for Children:

The Writer's Guide to Crafting Stories for Children by Nancy Lamb

I love this book so much, I'm re-reading it at the moment. It advises you all steps and aspects of writing a story for kids (and YAs). This guide even devotes a whole chapter to finding inspiration and ways to turn an idea into a story. There's also a great section helping you through the mid-story crisis, where you need to introduce momentum, and how to make your scenes page-turners. You'll learn about plots and sub-plots, suitable characters, dialogue and how to work your way through getting stuck with you WIP. It's easy to read and has lots of examples.

Mystery Writing:

Writing and Selling Your Mystery Novel by Hallie Ephron

This book is like a workbook and guide in one. Ephron provides charts and worksheets for your to fill in along the way as well as exercises for you tighten your mystery novel. A lot of planning goes into mysteries, you have to have your villains, detectives and victims all sorted, not to mention the clues and red herrings. Say a body turns up dead in your first page - have you bothered to do a character profile on that person? If you go to the extra trouble, you'll find more motives and suspects you can weave through your story.

If you are writing a mystery, you may get some help from my previous post:

13 Best Links for Mystery Writers

Fantasy Writing:

Adventures in Fantasy by John Gust

A text book designed to be used in the classroom, this book is actually great for all ages. The main premise is to start your Fantasy story by creating a map of your world. From there your landscapes and natural elements will help you decide how to populate that world and what ecological conflicts your characters could face. To read more of my review, you can see my previous post here. And for those who read it previously, I did overcome my problem of the Kindle version having worksheets I couldn't print; I view the page on my Kindle for Mac, then open the program Preview (this is Mac, not sure for PC users sorry) and take a snapshot of the page by selection.

Young Writers:

Juicy Writing by Brigid Lowry

This was a hard one to pick because there's a few books I love for young writers, but this one is new for me and I'm loving the practical yet motivating exercises in there. Adult writers could enjoy it too.

There are lots more books I love, but this blogpost would get way too long, so, I may have to save some for another time. Only X, Y and Z to go!

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V is for View - Blogger Tip

Looking for a new way to view blogs?

There's one app on the iPad that I love - Flipboard. What it does is display your blogs in a magazine fashion, so you see snippets of stories and such. Did you know that there are different ways to view people's blogs from your computer?

If you go to the url in the address bar right now (says http://www.clancytales.blogspot.com/) and add to it:

view

You'll probably get the sidebar view of this blog, down the sidebar of this blog is a list of all the previous blogs. Now at the top of the page towards the right side, there's a blue button that probably says Sidebar. You can click on that and choose the other layout designs as well. I quite like Snapshot for when you want to try to find a previous post.

Does this work on your blog? If you have blogger or blogspot blog, you need to go into the Settings menu (from your dashboard). Your blog must be public, not one that people need to sign into to see. In Settings, choose Site Feed, and make sure your 'Allow Blog Feeds' button is either 'Full' (that's what I have selected) or 'Jump Break'. Also in Setting, choose Formatting and where it says 'Enable Dynamic Views', choose Yes.

That's all you have to do (most are set this way by default anyway, so you might not have to tamper at all). Then view your blog and type the word 'view' at the end of the url. I just think it's cool.

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U is for Unwind

Time to Unwind

This A-Z has been great for social networking, but I'm assuming I'm not the only one finding it quite time-consuming at the moment. Not far to go, then I can go back to posting about three times a week. Like a lot of bloggers, after Z I intend to take a few days off to unwind.

Here's my ways of unwinding:

• Switch off the computer. I can't help myself and will start jumping from site to site if I have access.
• Read a new book that is not useful for my writing or in anyway literary. Something fun, maybe even smutty (okay, I'm lame, it'd be very mildly smutty or I'd get embarrassed that someone would recognise the novel).
• Download a TV series and watch all episodes in a veg-day marathon (these school holidays I've discovered Veronica Mars and Fringe).
• Do some writing exercises that are not about my current WIP. Riff-writing helps me to unthink too. Fantasy writer, Ursula Le Guin has a great book for strengthening your writing by breaking it down to smaller exercises (it's also great to use in the classroom) called Steering the Craft.
• Visit bookstores. This can be a bit of an expensive past time for me.
• Spend time with my dogs and an audiobook. I'll take one of my dogs for a nice long walk around Yass and listen to an audiobook at the same time. Today I was listening to book 3 in The Dresden Files series, Grave Peril by Jim Butcher (awesome detective style series with a slight difference, instead of a PI, the protagonist is a Wizard with a few bad debts).

My ways of unwinding always involve me doing things. I have a lot of trouble just relaxing, bubble baths just stress me because I think of all the things I need to be doing. Mind you, if I'm reading in the bath, then it's okay.

Another Unwind is the most awesome Scifi/dystopian novel I've ever read. Unwind by Neil Shusterman is masterful and the story will sit with you long after you finish (especially one particular scene, anyone who has read it will understand).

Click here to read a review of Unwind from Paper Dolls

Okay, now I've got a LOT of blogs to catch up on!

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T is for Titles

What's in a name? Can the title of your novel really decide how successful it is?

There's lots of things to consider when choosing a title.I've been doing some research and here are some tips I've unearthed from people in the know.

A novel title should:

• Express the genre. A Shallow Grave would suit a thriller or horror story, but I don't think it would be a great title for a pet memoir.
• Be Concise. Convoluted titles will only bore the reader. The Night We All Went into the Woods after Sarah Jane went Missing and Came Across a Scary Psychopath with an Axe might cover all the aspects of your story, but your book browser will probably put it down before getting halfway through the title.
• Be Original. Calling your book Silence of the Lambs might get you a few accidental purchases, but it won't win you long time readers. You can however rip off cliche's and quotes as titles.
• Be Funny. Humour is a great way to attract a reader (but only if your novel promises more humour within the narrative). Read this post by McSweeney to see why you must include the word Alchemist in your title.

Of course for every rule, there are plenty that break them, such as The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Paranormalcy (good read, but I find it so hard to say) and Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.

Thinking about genre, I thought I'd try and express Dog Show Detective in different genres (you know, for the fun).

Tail of Love Lost

Dognapped!

In Space No One Hears You Bark

Beware the Dognapper's Fangs

Okay, I suck at impromptu titles!

Check out this cool Internet Show on book titles:

http://www.getpublishedtv.com/best-book-titles-come-up-with-a-compelling-book-title-episode-038/

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