The Difference in My Writing Technique

Posted on by taniacreations

Link: www.uts.edu.au/future-students/find-a-course/…

It is not about you know, it is about the knowledge that becomes intuitive…

I am on a Masters of Arts in Creative Writing at UTS which I have started two years and six subjects ago. Recently I was revising something I have written when I was beginning the course.
I have realised how far I have come.
Mostly it was like practice driving.
When you learn how to drive you learn what you have to do but only by doing it repeatedly you will get to the point of really knowing it without having to think “now I have to break and look to both sides of the road for pedestrians”.
I had the knowledge of what was point of view, verbal tense, subjectivity of the narrator, before I started the course. But with the practice of reading, correcting and workshopping so many texts, pieces, articles, I realise now it is easy for me to analyse it, really see it and find the discrepancies.
Before I knew but could not see it. I would start a text in the present and change to immediate past without realising or be unaware that the point of view jumped in subtle ways.
Now I get it, my writing becomes clearer to me.
I rewrote the text with much more confidence.
Education pays greatly in my opinion.
Of course you can learn by yourself, but learning with help from people who know what they are doing and how to teach it has been an amazing experience.

(Orble Votes: 21)

Kindle and Ebooks: Amazon electronic books, everywhere, anywhere

Posted on by taniacreations

Amazon instructions click here

I was surprised to hear from one of my friends that she didn’t know she could get Amazon e-books on her iPhone. I think people get confused with the name “Kindle” it is because it means a couple of things.

Starting from the start, Kindle is the name of the device, e-book reader Amazon has created. So it is a little equipment, in different models, where you can read electronic books. What some people don’t realise is that Kindle is also the name of the technology, the application or the software from Amazon that reads their format of e-books.

The Kindle apps are available for various devices: you can download it for your tablet, iPad, iPhone, Android Phones, Windows PCs, Mac computers, laptops and desktops. The best of all is that if the device is connected to the net, it automatically syncs notes, highlights and last-page-read between all devices.

I have a Kindle device, it is very light and doesn’t have backlight, so it is ideal for me to travel or read at night in bed. I have the kindle on my iPad, where I like to study or read during the day on my lunchtime. Then I have it on my mobile, to read on the bus when all the seats are taken. Finally it is on laptop to see any highlights when I’m studying a book and want to check my notes to write something about it. I also use it to check how my own books are going to look before publishing.

I also like Amazon because they have a lot of e-book titles and are constantly making promotions. It is much cheaper than buying the printed versions usually. There is a lot of free books too. They are great for the authors like me because they let us publish directly without needing a publisher, paying a high royalty rate and helping us in many ways to promote the books. I think they may have more titles than others because they offer advantages to the authors to keep them exclusive for 90 days and they make the process easy for us, the writers, it is all done online.
If you haven’t yet, try it out, you will experience a new world of possibilities opening up for you.

(Orble Votes: 24)

Prayer for the Published Word

Posted on by taniacreations
I pray these words carry through
that they have enough weight to be picked up and tossed high
that they find anyone who will get something from reading them
May they find the ones who need them and the ones needed by them
I pray they reach people and inspire them, to positive change
I ask the Universe God, Buda, Allah and Zeus to aid them to fulfil their mission
And I declare that if only one person, by only one phrase I have now published, get to one worthwhile realisation, it will have been worth…
The timeless hours; taking notes through the night, disturbed sleep, anxiety, study, reading, re-writing, correcting, editing, the watching of others nipping and piercing through your creation, the pain, the joy, the despair, the fear and the fulfilment
It will have been worth it
My deep gratefulness for the privilege of putting these words to the World
By the power invested in me
Amen
(Orble Votes: 23)

I look with optimism at the decay of the publishing world

Posted on by taniacreations
“The world is changed, I feel it in the water, I feel it in the earth, I smell it in the air. Much that once was, is lost…”
Galadriel’s words come to me when I look at the publishing world. I’m seeing many bookstores closing, I look at my own reading habits and how much they have changed since I acquired my first Kindle.
When I look at Amazon’s best sellers lists I see several self-published books competing with the largest publishers, and quite often these publishers are not doing a very good job in promoting their books and authors in the ebook platforms.
I have knowledge of ebook publishing and can see several errors in basic strategy that are more common to the publishers than the individual authors.
I look at all that is changing and see great opportunities. There are so many wonderful books I would like to re-read that are not online; there are many great books in other languages that were never translated because of the difficulty to reach a market. So many series forgotten in libraries because it was hard to get all the books in the series, in their proper order would have been even harder.
The ebooks bring the classics for free and a lot more for free, good and bad. These free books are wonderful opportunities to promote a new author. Writers able to create series of books are the ones who are more prone to success.
What I believe is happening is the old publishing houses to be stuck in their stubbornness to prove they are right, instead of looking ahead of what is coming next.
I understand, quality will suffer, glamour is lost, jobs are on the line. But change is change and there is no point struggling against it, you have to go with it, see where it takes you. I find there is a need to find new avenues to promote their books and their writers. I have read mostly unknown writers since I have gotten my kindle. Before I would go to a library or a bookstore and choose among the best sellers and known ones.
I still feel a bit romantic and would love to see my book in hardcover, do book signings in a bookstore. But that may be a scene from the past, is is possible bookstores are doomed and I am part of what caused this change.
What is that saying? Lying in the bed you’ve made? I hope I can do it, with pleasure.
(Orble Votes: 23)

What Works in Writing

Posted on by taniacreations
 I wonder if one day I will know what works and what doesn’t for me. In inspiration and writing, every time is different. I’m creating a new book, one written in English this time. But my inspiration and especially my confidence are fragile.
How much feedback is good? What to accept and what not. Sometimes I feel I don’t want to listen, unless it is positive. On the other hand there is a great benefit in listening, to the good and the bad, learning, adjusting, in finding the way.
(Orble Votes: 32)

The success of a failure

Posted on by taniacreations

They say everyone is a winner, I feel like one even though I was very far from 50,000 words. There is this website http://www.nanowrimo.org where people log themselves in to launch full on into a competition, except they are really just competing with themselves. Nanowrimo stands for national novel writing month and it runs every November. the name is actually wrong because what started with a North American website where about 40 registered over 10 years ago, today it is fully international with more than 300,000 registered in 2012.

You sign in and every day register your word count, attempting to reach 50,000 words by the 30th of November. I’ve made it to about 7,000 words. I won’t stop writing and participating in the event gave me inspiration and ideas. I’ll just need more time than a month.

The best I took from it was that, for the first draft, it is smart to turn the internal editor and critic off.

I also feel good I actually intend to do something about my writing and not just put it into a drawer once it is done. I’ve met a few winners who have been doing this for a few years, and every year, after writing 50,000 words, they put it somewhere and forget about it.

That is why I think, in my failure, I feel successful, because my writing will see the light of day.

(Orble Votes: 16)

Solution to uploading a book with pictures at Amazon

Posted on by taniacreations
Book by Tania Crivellenti at Amazon.com

Publishing an e-book has been an adventure. My first stop and what seemed the easiest was Amazon.com
When I thought I was on the last leg of my publishing trip I was, in reality, starting a new journey.

After writing, correcting, revising, re-reading, changing, re-correcting, re-revising, then creating a layout, checking styles, etc. etc. etc., a book, you would think it was done.

So I sent the book to be published at Kindle Direct Platform thinking it was a piece of cake. When I followed the instructions from Amazon they indicated that the best idea was to upload an html file. The problem is that they also instructed people to put all files for the book (html file pictures) in one folder and zip this folder.
When you save a document from Word to an html format it automatically creates a subfolder with all your pictures in it.
I thought if I moved the file into the folder with the picture all would be fine. Ok, what no-one tells you is that the path to the pictures inside the html file will be wrong if you do that. If you move the html file to be in the same folder as the pictures it cannot find them.
And because the only sample that you have of your final book is a horrible thingy that appears on a pop-up window, you have no idea how it is going to look! I just assumed that having followed all instructions it would be enough.
It wasn’t. It was horrible to see “my baby” published as it was: badly formatted with missing images.
I immediately took it off and started the adventure of finding a solution.
I am a writer, not an I.T. person, I have a good BASIC knowledge of softwares and stuff, therefore I had no idea what was wrong.
Amazon doesn’t help, they only sent me one of those “pre-prepared” e-mails. You don’t receive a sample of what your book is going to look like or anything.

First I found a way to see my book exactly how it was going to be published; a comment by a man named John:
http://forums.kindledirectpublishing.com/kdpforums/thread.jspa?messageID=47403&#47403

It is a funny zip & zipping process. It worked.
Then I saw that the formatting was all wrong and the pictures not there yet. I even bought a Kindle to get myself into the e-book world.
Following I tried other formats to upload the book: pdf, doc, docx, mhtml, mobi, prc. I downloaded several e-book converters and readers.
The result was only one: disaster! Either the pictures were missing or the format was messy.
I wanted to cry.
When I was at the end of my limits I did what was left to do: I cried for help. And here comes a very handy facebook profile. I sent messages to friends and e-mails and asked for help on facebook.
My friend gave me the idea to Google the problem. Up to now I had been looking into Amazon forum for the answer.
At Google I found a website that was part of the solution:
http://www.cjs-easy-as-pie.com/p/about-kindle.html
But when I saw this tutorial I wanted to cry, at that moment I needed a solution to the pictures issue and that was all. I couldn’t even thinking of doing all that with the big issue fresh in my mind.
I tried the mobi converter to produce the document but the pictures still didn’t upload.

It was in a conversation with a very smart friend of mine that the solution was made obvious to me. He is what I called an assessor for all matters, he is one of those people that seems to know all about everything. He pointed out that if I moved the html pictures the path would be made invalid.
Then another friend helped me to transform a theoretical solution into a practical one. With a few minutes, some quick searches and the right computer knowledge this other friend sorted out how to correct the problem.
All you have to do is:
– Save your file as HTML, authomatically Word will create a subfolder with all your pictures in it.
– Move your file to the same folder where your pictures are.
– Then open the doc file with WordPad or any software that will read it as text, and search for the pictures’ names as they were put by Word in the folder.
– Re-write the path, the instruction to where your pictures are so the file can find them in the same folder as the text is.
For example, my pictures were named as image001, image002, etc.
My file was named “test file”
In my file the path to the pictures were:
src=”test_file/image001.jpg”
Meaning that the pictures were into a sub-folder called test_file.
All I did was take off that part of the instruction, leaving only the name of the picture instead:
src=” image001.jpg”
And it worked.

And suddenly, life was, once more, perfect. Knowing how to solve the pictures problem gave me the energy to go through C.J.’s tutorial, create a table of contents that would work, mark the start of the book, and prepare the file for Kindle.
John’s comment made possible for me to check if things were going the way they were suppose and at the end the book was sent!

“Fio da Meada” is a fictional novel based in real life. It is the story of a ghost that talks to a woman who lives in a faraway land. Itamar wakes up from his death to find himself following a ferry and having flashbacks of his life. He has humorous stories to tell and so does she.
The story follows his train of thought telling a story of family roots, the past and present, life in Brazil and in Australia.
This book is in Portuguese (Brazilian) and the first of many. I will shortly release it at Apple Store and possibly for Kobo. Then, the second novel, also in Portuguese, called “Simplesmente Gerva”. After that I will publish a book born Aussie: written in English.
If you have friends that read Portuguese, be kind by forwarding this information.
A few years from now you will be reading a best seller, or watching a movie or even a TV series and you will be saying you are friends with the writer of that story!
I will be able to say I have special regard for the people that were there at the beginning of this wonderful adventure…

Find the book here: www.amazon.com.au/dp/B007XAJOFM

(Orble Votes: 32)

Be Brave and Publish Your Books

Posted on by taniacreations

I used to be afraid of publishing my books. I am not anymore.

It is such a simple reasoning and yet, it evaded me like the vampire avoids the cross. I was so scared of criticism, of not being approved for publishing, of not being sold or not being liked that I stood frozen.

Suddenly (with a lot of internal mental work) I realised that nothing matters except putting the books out there.

If I don’t get a publisher I will pay for the publishing myself; if it sells, awesome, if it doesn’t, I’m a published author. At the very least I shall sell a few books to friends and family If people like it, great! If not, at least I have written and published a book, not everyone can say that.

Thinking of the books as stepping stones, as possibilities, as one of the ways that my writer career could climb, I can be happy with any results that come from them. Treating the books as my sole chance of success was absolutely killing my will to get published.
So you see, it is easy, forget all the reasons you have for not offering your book for publishing and send it out today.
A few months back I had two books that were written but needed revision to be ready for publishing. I then decided to take time and do just that. I have accomplished my tasks and completed them, they are fictional novels, written in Portuguese; one is about a colourful Brazilian guy who dates an Australian girl and the other has true tales from my grandfather’s life as a fictional ghost.
I have sent them to copyright; then distributed them to some chosen editors and finally promoted them at a specific website which distributes the books to potential publishing houses according to the book style and the editorial line of the publishers.
Now I am waiting for answers, let’s see how it goes. Wish me luck!

(Orble Votes: 82)

Living the Life of My Dreams

Posted on by taniacreations
I feel like I was born to write. It just feels right. The feedback I receive is that I do have a gift. So this is what I am doing. Although I am posting less writings in my blogs it is because I am actually acting on the becoming a novelist part.
I have just finished preparing my first book for publication. I am currently distributing it to editors. This one is written in Portuguese, as is the next one. I have another fiction novel written which I am now going to correct and prepare for edition too.
Thinking about all that it came to my mind something I have written about before: thinking like a writer. Writing is so right for me because I am always thinking as if I am writing a story. That is how I came to the thought that it is a veritable crime that telepathy, controlled telepathy, doesn’t exist. I would love to jump to another person’s mind just to see how they process their thoughts; it has to be different from where I do. Imagine that a musician would think about the world as the sounds it produces. And a painter see the colours, almost as if the sounds would be fading, just background. A photographer would think in still poses, while a videographer would always think about the connection of the events.
It was in this thought stream that I realised I can, and I do, enter other people’s minds! Reading, listening to music, watching a movie, through all arts. Maybe that is why art is so imbedded into humanity, for the capacity it has to bring us the power of telepathy.
We create a world around us always based on the way we think. I wonder if I write because I think in narratives or if I think through stories because I am a writer. The egg or the chicken? Have you ever realised that most characters from most writers in history like to read? And it is pretty common for the author to make a remark in the story saying that the character likes to read, usually a lot. Writers, by definition, like to read, so our lives in general sieve through the life of the beings we breathe life into.
I am living this life of my dreams. I have given myself the permission to go through my savings and write for the love of my life, in the sense of survival. As if it was the only thing I was meant to do. And it feels so perfect. I trust the universe to bring me the means to continue to do that. Meanwhile I am dedicating myself of living life fully and as a full time writer.
(Orble Votes: 126)

Welcome to 2009 Written Life! New Author, New Ideas!

Posted on by taniacreations

This is my new Blog and my idea is to use the name of the site as its theme: writing about life. Mine and in general.
This is the best time to start something new: beginning of the year, just after vacations, writing about life now will be even easier…

(Orble Votes: 44)