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

Writer's Identity

I think I am having an identity crisis! I created a second account on Face Book strictly for my writing world. I already had an account devoted to my Tarot world friends and business contacts. The two accounts started blending, so I deactivated the author account. Thank you, Face Book - my friends from my second account are showing up on the first one - at last some of them are. Both accounts were under the same name (yes, that was possible), so my contacts do friends show as friends on my other account -I hope I didn't lose anybody! LOL Rereading this first paragraph, I am pretty sure that everyone is going "What?" Hey - It has been that kind of day!

I got my first refusal for an interview today. Now, granted, it was in another genre than I usually write in, and the excuse was valid, but it still did not feel good. I am very happy that it is almost midnight,and a new day will be starting.

As writers, how do we keep our identities separate? Not necessarily our writing identities (where we may choose to use different names in different genres), but our various selves,which for me right now consists of Tarot reader/reviewer/interviewer/author, music promoter/editor, and mystery writer.

Perhaps someday I will have an answer for this.

(c) January 2011 Bonnie Cehovet

Monday's Writer's Tips

Each Monday I am going to be bringing you writer's tips - some from the far reaches of my own brain, some from other writer's sites and blogs. Enjoy!

1. What is the best way to gather material for writing? To live a full life, to stay in the present, to notice the people and the activity around you.

2. Read other writer's books. You have to know what is out there in order to write anything that is relevant.

3. Put your own shadows down on paper. They have a story to tell too.

4. Write about what you are passionate about - not just what you think will sell. Your passions will survive the test of time.

5. Write ... every day ... write.

6. Be willing to pay for an editor. 'nuff said!

7. Let your story flow ... allow it to tell itself. You will be surprised at how well stories that are allowed to be themselves turn out!

8. Edit your work carefully - spell-check is not perfect!

9. Look for repetitive phrases - they can be boring!

10. Ask for criticism ... then pay attention to it!

(c) January 2011 Bonnie Cehovet

Writer's Bible

What is a writer's bible? We hear the word bandied about, but what exactly does it mean? A writer's bible is a reference source that is created for each story, book, play or other writing project that a writer is involved in. It acts as a reference for keeping important threads together, for keeping track of time-lines, for keeping track of characters, plots and sub-plots. It can also be used for noting possible promotional blurbs, taglines and synopsis.

I created a bible for my 2010 NaNoWriMo project,and am very glad that I did. It allowed me to keep track of characters,the significant people in their lives, how they interacted, what defined them, and the sequence of events (past and present). It also allowed me to note how I had described things like cars,rooms, restaurants and such. As my characters moved in a very luxurious lifestyle, I needed to keep track of things like jewelry, designers,and the worlds of art and music.

A good bible can help prevent some very embarrassing mistakes, and is well worth putting the effort into.

(c) January 2011 Bonnie Cehovet

1/11/11

There were many posts on the meaning for 1/11/11. I decided to wait until the end of the the day and take a look back, see what happened. Was it what I thought it would be? Looking at the numbers, we are looking at new beginnings (the number 1), and an ascension to higher consciousness (11). Added together you get the number 5 - change. Add the first two numbers of the year to this, and you get the number 7 - seeking truth, looking within, and problem solving. Layer this energy over the energy of the universal year, which for 2011 is the number 4. It is a year of building, of setting down foundations for the coming years. It is about being responsible, and doing the work.

This is a time for us when we can most easily manifest positive change in our lives. The number 11 is connected with our intuition and psychic ability, as well as our faith and belief in ourselves. This is a day when if we look,if we listen, we will find the pieces that are missing.

For some, this will have been a nice, gentle process. For me it was not. I was thinking deeply about death. I am old ... but not that old! Yet thoughts of personal death came to me, and I was ready for them. Before you run out and dial 911, know that I am referring to a death of my life the way that it has been, and entering into a new life, on a higher plane of consciousness. It came to me symbolically as the death of me.

In one part of this lifetime I was a Medical Technologist. It took quite sometime to make the change into my next profession, that of reading Tarot professionally. I am in the process of transitioning from reading the Tarot to writing for a living. I can only hope that the process of death - of embracing what I need to release, and then releasing it, will make a clean break from my "old" life, and a gracious entrance into my new one.

Some things I know: this will be the last year that I attend a major Tarot event in a professional capacity. My interaction in the Tarot world will be as a writer, not as a reader. My first Tarot book will be published at the end of 2011. My writing project from the 2010 National Novel Writer's Month will be finished and self-published in 2011. My second Tarot book will be finished in 2011. I hope to make my first non-Tarot book into a series. My focus now is rightfully on writing and writer's groups, as opposed to Tarot and Tarot groups.

I have one saving grace, and that is that in 2009 music came back into my life in a big way. It has sustained me, and I am sure will continue to do so.

It will be interesting to hear other 1/11/11 personal stories. I have a feeling that there are more than a few out there, as the numbers are significant.

(c) January 2011 Bonnie Cehovet