Placing Images On Your Site

It is one thing to write books, stories and articles, it is quite another to get them out there! We get our names know,and keep our names fresh, through our blogs and sites. If we are smart, we add visuals - scans of photo's or other material that add interest to what we write. I have to admit, I don't have a clue what is going on here! I know nothing about the technology, and have been known to do the happy dance simply if a jpeg uploads properly!

What I didn't realise is that images need to be optimized because images from a camera have a large file size. I also didn't realise that resizing in Word Press changes only the display size, not the file size. Also, in doing this the quality of the image suffers.

I recently ran across information on a site called Web Resizer (http://www.webresizer.com/).

What a gift for us non-techies that are trying to do it all, and have no web master! With Web Resizer you can reduce the image size, crop photos, sharpen, change the height and width, rotate a photo, adjust brightness and saturation, convert a photo to black and white (a nice trick for bringing mood to written work!), and add a border. The site is free,and here is no registration!

The photo in this article is one that I ran through this site. Not bad for a first time user!

(c) February 2011 Bonnie Cehovet

Love Is In The Air

Love is indeed in the air! Wishing everyone a very Happy Valentines Day! Today I am not thinking about personal love, but love of writing. All writers share this love. Writing is our passion - we live to write! It is in our blood, it is our reason for getting up very morning. Sometimes we curse it out, sometimes we hide from it, but at all times nothing will drag us away from our computers!

If you are like me, you will write about anything and everything! Anything that catches my interest can spark a story -some long, some short, but there is always a story there. Lately I have found myself writing short rants (under the guise of blogs) about things that irritate me. Some things I wisely keep to myself, but others are fit for public consumption. By writing it out I can often times come up with a solution. At the least, others facing the same issues will be reassured that they are not alone. ;-)

My love of writing is helping me to expand my life. Expand it as far as meeting new friends in the writing world, getting feedback on my writing, researching writing tools, researching publication options and connecting with with editors and publicists.

Where is your love of writing taking you?

(c) February 2011 Bonnie Cehovet

Manuscript Makeover

I am currently reading Elizabeth Lyon's "Manuscript Makeover - Revision Techniques No Fiction Writer Can Afford To Ignore" (Perigee Book, 2008). I have had this on my wish list for sometime now, so I finally got rash and added it to my latest book order. I like her on-line blog, so I knew the book would be worthwhile -and it is. I can use it to polish my work before it goes to an editor, and I can use it to fine tune any feedback that I get on work that I am self-publishing.

This book will allow me to fine-tune the voice that I already have, to revise and rewrite with an eye to consistency (I can tend to wander off at times), and to keep track of the little stuff, like grammar, punctuation and pacing. Like any writer, I love to write. Now that my aim is to write professionally, I don't mind going back, revisiting what was so wonderful when I wrote it, and casting a more jaded eye over it.

Lyon's addresses things such as separating the story from the writing (ego issues here!), revising a story's style, structure, pacing, building strong characters, and the nitty gritty of copyediting and spiffing up query letters and synopsis (I hate writing a synopsis!) for marketing purposes.

Her style is straightforward and down to earth, discussing problem areas and presenting solutions.

I have a mystery novel from NaNoWriMo 2010 that will benefit from me sitting down to rewrite and edit with one eye on my computer screen, and the other on this book!

(c) February 2011 Bonnie Cehovet