Author Archive
Posted on October 20, 2011 - by Nicole Humphrey Cook
Finding New Funny Websites
Since I sit and write all day, I sometimes have to kill time by taking frequent breaks for a funny tv show, a comedy movie or even a funny website. I’m not always looking for funny stuff during my breaks, sometimes I’m tweeting and sometimes I’m looking for inspiration or researching something on a plot point I am working on. But I won’t lie, the funny stuff is what I tend to come back to, over and over.
I recently discovered a rather hilarious site with great some super funny autocorrect photos. I really wish I could tell you why these make me laugh so much, but I think it’s because it has happened to me at times. I find real life humor much funnier than made up stuff I guess. I don’t know. If you can’t laugh at life, what can you laugh at?
After reading through almost every auto correct fail they had, I moved on to the Photoshop Fail photos which also pretty much made me laugh out loud over and over again. I called my kids in to check out a lot of them and some of them you just sit and stare at and wonder why?
A long time ago, I was on my daughter’s facebook page while she was showing me pictures of a friend. I kept seeing a trend showing up over and over again in the photos. They would purse their lips and do these ridiculous things with their mouths and it was almost every photo. I thought it looked ridiculous, but it was happening everywhere and it just continued to happen. I even noticed it on adults pages and just kept thinking, WTF? Well, apparently I’m covered on the thinking it’s ridiculous, because I found a whole section dedicated to duckface photos. Can I tell how hilarious it is that people actually call it “duckface” because honestly that’s what it looks like!
Do you enjoy any “laugh out loud” visual photo sites that you’re willing to share with me? I’d love to be able to kill some more time looking at other sites. If you know of one, feel free to leave it in the comments below.
Popularity: 1% [?]
Posted on October 19, 2011 - by Nicole Humphrey Cook
Are You a Planner or Pantser?
Do you outline your novel? How much outlining do you do? Do you use a program? Notecards? Pieces of torn paper or napkins?
In my normal daily writing, I tend to be a planner, plotting, outlining, note cards and post it’s. I used yWriter up until recently when I have been messing around with Scrivener a little. Not sure what I will be using for NaNo – yWriter or Scrivener. So planning is something that comes naturally to me.
But when it comes time each year for NaNoWriMo, I tend to go back and forth between outlining & planning and then doing the whole wing it by the seat of my pants kind of thing. The first few years (four I believe) I just sat down at the start and wrote and wrote and wrote. Slept a little, had some dreams, added some of those elements into my novel and then wrote and wrote and wrote so more. There was no outlining, no structured planning. And I’ve won NaNo several times that way – the problem is, those are the novels that need the most tweaking, the most editing, the most help when it’s all over. Those are also the novels that continue to sit with little done to them because they come across as such a mess to me.
Last year and the year before, I took time to plot and outline. I’ve used both the snowflake method, storyboarding as well as mind mapping. I’m usually more successful if I use the snowflake method or just create a basic outline/storyboarding.
I’m honestly curious, which are you? A Planner or Pantser? Does it change come November?
A couple useful articles I came across while researching outlining methods:
Planning, Outlining and Organizing Your Novel
Popularity: 7% [?]
Posted on October 9, 2011 - by Nicole Humphrey Cook
NaNoWriMo 2011 Desktop Calendars
The calendar I used last year.
Desktop calendars and wallpapers, are a hot item each year for National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). They are already being made and spread around like wildfire with the new dates and goals on a November 2011 calendar. Here are a few to choose from.
- Julia Woodrow - She has 3 different backgrounds up so far, as of the writing of this post. They are really nice and I like the funny, yet positive messages along the way.
- Kiriska – She has one up with a beautiful golden Fall color theme. It’s definitely mood setting.
- Lily Moore – She has one, titled Challenge Accepted, which made me smile. She filled it up with humor along the way.
- Surly Muse – I found another cool one, quite by accident. Enjoy!
Popularity: 46% [?]
Posted on October 8, 2011 - by Nicole Humphrey Cook
Is NaNo Seriously Less Than a Month Away?
I can hardly believe it is October. I am trying to wrap my head around the fact that almost all of 2011 has passed us by, and that my favorite month of the year is coming up lightening fast. Okay, so November isn’t actually my favorite month of the year, but it is for writing purposes, and that’s what I’m talking about here.
I’ve been working on last years novel, since … well – last year. In fact, I’ve only taken a break from it briefly at the start of the summer, but am up to my eyeballs in rewrites.
So it’s time to begin planning for this years National Novel Writing Month. And I’m so not at all ready either. How do I do that? My mind is stuck in last years novel, and I’m supposed to come up with a new idea for this year. I’ve been tossing around the idea of a book 2. What do you think? Begin working on book 2 before book 1 is even complete? That seems wrong on a few levels.
And if I were to start from scratch with ideas, which I normally do, and I normally change about a dozen times before I actually get to Nov. 1, I don’t even know which genre I feel like focusing on this year. I’m usually YA. I love YA. But I’ve also been playing a little with some mystery and also romance.
Last years idea came to me in a dream of sorts in late September, early October. So why hasn’t that happened this year yet?
Are you doing NaNoWriMo this year? Do you have an idea yet? Have you begun plotting, outlining and planning yet?
The 2011 National Novel Writing Month boards will reset on Monday. I am eager to see what the new changes to the site will mean for all of us. And in case you were actually wondering, this is my 8th year doing NaNo, I’ve won every year except once (unless you count the year I discovered NaNo halfway through and still attempted it and failed hahah – that was 2003!)
So tell me about your NaNo – What year are you going on? What genre are you writing? How far into planning are you, or are you a pantser? I want to know more.
Also, if you’d like a buddy – Feel free to add me on the site.
Popularity: 4% [?]
Posted on September 16, 2011 - by Nicole Humphrey Cook
Favorite Tweets For Writer’s – 9/16/2011
“Writing is easy: All you do is sit staring at a blank sheet of paper until drops of blood form on your forehead. ”
- Gene Fowler
Did you miss them? I haven’t done this post lately, because I got so busy with other things, and I sure didn’t mean to. Now I’m back and I’m on a roll. I have a huge list of great posts from the past few weeks to share. I might have to include some with next week’s post too. There’s so many great posts right now, and I definitely don’t want to overwhelm you.
Some of these links I may have re-tweeted throughout the week(s), but most are new.
On Agents/Editors/Querying:
- Will My Agent Rep a Different Genre
- When An Agent Offers To Rep You
- Looking Around While Still Represented
- Should Agents Respond to All Queries
- Some Poetic Query Advice
- For Writers Whose Work Has Been Rejected: Read This
- Two Words That Can Change Your Writing Career
On Character Development & Dialog:
- Character Attributes
- When It’s all Your MC’s Fault
- Red Herrings as Scapegoated Characters in Mystery Genre
- Voice Is Not Everything (but it is vitally important)
- The Uncensored Voice
- What Your Characters Favorite Fairy Tale Says about Them
- Kate Hart on Dialogue and Dialect
- 7 Ways to Develop Dazzling Dialogue
- Laying Some Smack Down on the Page
On Genre Specifics:
- The Art & Craft of Fantasy Writing
- The Newest Trend in YA
- Then All Genres are Flawed
- How to Write Spiritual/New Age Fiction
- Researching the Historical Novel
- How To Mix Genres to Write Fresh Novels or Short Stories
- So You Wanna Write a Web Serial?
On Publishing:
- Should you use a Pseudonym + Cool Fake Name Generator
- How To Build A List Of Readers For Your Next Book Launch
- Random Acts of Publicity
- Don’t Want to be a “One Book Wonder”
- New Ways to Sell Short Stories
- Reaching Out to Booksellers: A Publicists Advice
On Revision/Editing:
- Revision: It’s the Little Things
- Self Editing 101
- Conflicting Advice on Revisions: What the Professionals Say
On Outlining & Plotting:
- Choosing the Best Outlining Method for You
- Backstory: Where and How Much?
- Make Your Ending as Big as Possible
- Openers
- Cramped Middles
- 10 Tips Guaranteed to Rescue Your Story
- The Plot Thickens
- Non-Linear Writing: Focusing on Your Story’s DNA
On Social Networking/Blogging & Other Online Stuffs:
- Your Public Persona: Proudly Wearing the Author Badge
- Brilliance in 140 Characters
- 19 Ways to Get More Readers To Your Author’s Blog
- How Do You Get More Followers to Your Blog
- Twitter Etiquette and Marketing
- Social Media and Your Author Brand
- The Major League Baseball Guide to Pulling Out of a Blogging Slump
- How Social Media and YOU can Bring a Book to Life
- Why Copying Inspires Creativity?
On Writing in General:
- Your Novel’s Going Nowhere
- Frustration: Your Novel’s Best Friend
- Read Like a Writer
- How To Write Fight Scenes With Alan Baxter
- To Trend or Not to Trend
- A Writer’s Main Objective
- Don’t Be Afraid to Write a Bad Book
- What Does It Really Take To Succeed
- Pushing the Mute Button on Writing Advice
- Writers: Finding Your Identity
- Cover Art is Like Chocolate
- Let’s Bore Reader’s to Death
- The Writing Process: From Idea to Print
- Is There a Template for Creativity
- Writing Lessons from a Blogvel
- What Authors Can Learn From the Best Sellers List
- Become a Better Writer By Practicing Gratitude
On Everything Else (including cool things, inspiration, creativity, free things and funny stuff):
- The High’s and Low’s of the Writing Life by Jody Hedlund
- Internal and External Inspirations
- Creativity? Train Your Brain to be an Idea-Generating Machine
Did I miss anything? I’m sure I did. Please leave a comment with a link so others can find it!
If you missed last weeks Favorite Tweets for Writers, find it here.
Added this week: If you are interested in getting your own posts included, the best way to get me to notice you is to follow my blog on GFC. I visit those sites daily looking for new articles to post on twitter. I primarily use Google Friend Connect but I’m looking for new methods, added soon. (send ideas my way, LOL)
Popularity: 5% [?]
Posted on September 14, 2011 - by Nicole Humphrey Cook
31 Days of Writing Wisdom Series
I don’t know why I do it. I just keep piling more and more things onto my plate for the month of October, but I can’t seem to stop. Now I’ve discovered 31 days of Change and I want to do this on my both of my blogs. This one of course, needed to be a writing focused theme, so I came up with 31 Days of Writing Wisdom.
I plan to blog for 31 days straight here on It’s All About Writing, with a nice dose of tips, helpers and just general writing wisdom to help you out. I hope you’ll come back and join me for all 31 days.
I’d also really love to hear from you, as to what you might like to hear about. What kinds of things do you struggle with? Time? Writer’s Block? Organization? Knowing that will help me prepare a series that will benefit everyone. So please, take some time out and leave me a comment. Thanks!
Linked to:
Popularity: 5% [?]
Posted on September 10, 2011 - by Nicole Humphrey Cook
Lazy Days of Summer Into Frantic Days of Fall
I spent the entire summer wishing it was Fall – the heat, the humidity, being locked indoors because you could barely breathe in the stifling heat. Now that Fall is rapidly approaching and the lazy, carefree days of summer are over, I sort of wish school vacations took place now, and not during those hot, barely tolerable days. Of course, what it’s interesting to me how I had all that spare time over the summer and I didn’t get nearly the amount of writing in, that I am now.
While the pace of life picks up during the Fall for us, apparently I am much more productive when my kids are at school. So in between juggling all sorts of projects for my other blog, I am also trying to get some editing done on the book I’ve spent the last 11 months working on. Well, 11 months – 2 months of my lazy summer. I did however need that break, because when I returned to it a few weeks ago, I had a fresh outlook, a new direction and a whole lot of time to devote to making it better.
I find that when I write regularly on my WIP, I also become more active on my blog, and become more involved in the twitterverse and just generally become more online oriented. I’m not sure why this is. Maybe because I am spending countless hours starting at a white screen willing words to come out of my brain and flow through my fingertips on to the keyboard, and I need a break from that frequently. I don’t know.
I have been tossing around the idea of doing the 31 days challenge that is linked to my “other blog” link above, on this blog as well. I need to get back into the habit of blogging regularly instead of the sporadic post usually apologizing for my absence. Are you doing the 31 day challenge? If you are, comment below so I can follow your series of 31 posts for the month of October. I think it will help, and since October is typically my planning period for NaNoWriMo, perhaps that will kick my rear into gear and I’ll actually accomplish something before October 31st at midnight and I can start writing as soon as the clock strikes November 1st.
Do you feel like you have more time to write during the lazy days of summer, or the frantic days of Fall?
Popularity: 5% [?]
Posted on August 29, 2011 - by Nicole Humphrey Cook
Don’t Start Over: What To Do When You Feel Like Giving Up
Everyone, at some point feels like giving up. So what do you do when you feel like throwing in the towel and scrapping all the hard work you’ve put into a piece of writing – whether article, manuscript or otherwise?
You don’t give up!!
Characters-Try getting to know your characters better. You can ask them questions, or try writing in a more natural voice. Sometimes just making minor tweaks to dialogue or knowing a character better, why they do the things they do, etc. can make such a difference in your writing.
Editing-Don’t do it. Unless you can actually see how editing yourself is going to change the direction your book is going, avoid it at all cost. Try to just plow through and make changes later. If you absolutely have to edit, try choosing small parts to fix and leave the bigger things for later.
Inspiration-There are so many different places to find inspiration when you feel like there isn’t any. Try looking at Inspirational Photographs. Put yourself inside the photograph or write what is happening in the photograph. Is there somewhere in your story that could fit in? Try to incorporate it into your current WIP. Another trick, is to change where you’re writing from. Try writing at a coffee house or outside in your backyard. Sometimes a scenery change can help a lot.
If you feel like you have to walk away, do it for now. Put it away somewhere, file it away on your computer, but do it with the intent to come back to it. It would help to even set a date that you plan to come back to it. A couple of weeks, a month, six months – whatever. But don’t completely scrap it and throw it away.
Don’t Give Up!
Popularity: 7% [?]
Posted on August 19, 2011 - by Nicole Humphrey Cook
Triberr & Writing
I joined Triberr originally for my other twitter account @dailydishrecipe, and was pretty excited when I got my first pick on tribes I applied to. I got hooked within the first week, became super active and felt like I had gotten to know many people pretty well. I eventually added my @simplywriting twitter account and added the RSS feed for this blog. Then I set out to find some writing groups.
My whole goal with Triberr was to meet new people and become friendly with other bloggers. It definitely happened, but so did many other things along the way. I thought I would share some advice from my month on Triberr.
- When you first join Triberr – do not join another tribe, or create another tribe, until you have been a member for at least 2 weeks. This will allow you time to get used to the site, learn all the features and not make any mistakes along the way. (okay that’s silly because I’m sure you’ll make mistakes…. we all do.)
- When you do finally join new tribes, try to find out as MUCH information as you can about the tribe. Triberr has the settings set so that you usually can’t see who’s in a tribe until you get into it, nor can you have any idea what the frequency of tweets, etc will be in there. I learned this the hard way. I could see that there were 13 people in one tribe I joined, I thought that seemed manageable and small, which was what I wanted – only to find out that 3 out of the 13 people were deal & giveaway bloggers and they posted like 20 times a day. Yeah, talk about a clogged twitter feed.
- You can set the frequency of how often you tweet from Triberr. I usually have my set for 15 minutes, and then at night, I will up it to 5 minutes if there’s a lot scheduled. Also, remember that all of the posts in your stream from your tribemates are TENTATIVELY scheduled to go out at that time, does not mean they actually will. Triberr JUST added a “Tweet Now” button which as been WONDERFUL for me. I sometimes have huge gaps in my stream between posts/tweets, and posts that are clustered together, etc. This way, I can simply click the TWEET NOW button and it gets sent immediately. The only thing that would make it better is if we could schedule tweets for a certain time LOL.
- Don’t join whatever tribe sends you an invite. Don’t try to join every tribe. After I started paying attention to what tribemates were posting, I realized that there was a lot of stuff going out that wasn’t the type of information my followers were looking for – nothing like mixing yummy recipe posts with disgusting poopy diaper posts. Yeah, not really my thing.
- If you have a question, or a problem – and you ask a question in the Bonfire area – that’s okay. But don’t get mad when you don’t get a response right away. Both Dan & Dino have full time jobs and are extremely attentive during their off hours, but they have wives, girlfriends and a life. You’re not paying for the site, so just be patient. It’s still new, it’s going to have growing pains.
- Don’t be sucked into the numbers game. Many start paying attention to “reach” which is the number of people you “reach” with your post when it is tweeted to each of your tribemates. It’s hard not to notice it, but I don’t even pay attention to it anymore. Many want to have the highest, biggest reach – but by far this doesn’t mean anything and what it usually does is turn your twitter stream into a spammy mess, because in a tribe of 20, if everyone posted once a day (and trust me, many of these people do nothing but post ALL day) = that’s 20 posts that are going to go through your twitter stream in one day. Join more than once tribe and that number continues to climb.
- Which reminds me, make sure you pay attention to your twitter stream. Look at what you’re posting. Then think about if you were one of your followers, would you find that info useful? Or spammy? Some of these “general” tribes are full of the giveaway gals, as I call them. They do nothing but post about deals, coupons and oh my goodness – the giveaways, all day. Which means, you do nothing but tweet about their posts about the deals, coupons and the giveaways. See? Great if you’re a giveaway gal, not so great if you’re not.
Don’t get me wrong – deals, coupons and giveaways are great but some of these gals were posting upwards of 6-10 times a day (most of the time more). I post MAYBE once a day. It was too much.
I don’t regret Triberr in any way, shape or form. I have grown as a blogger since day 1, I continue to pay attention to what is being tweeted, and I’m still having a great time. There’s been some snafu’s along the way, and they are what they are. I’m good with them.
So, with all the said – if you are writer, and you are interested in joining our tribe Writing Warriors, let me know (send me an inbox nicole AT nicolehumphrey DOT net, or send me a message on twitter. I do have inbreeding unlocked so if you are already on Triberr, I have you covered too. We’re a friendly bunch with quality content – you do however need to have a writing blog where more than 75% of your posts are related to writing. But other than that, any genre, topic, etc.
If you have other tips & tricks for Triberr members or newbies, please feel free to leave them in the comments.
Wanna join my tribe? Shoot me a message! :0)
Have a great weekend!
Popularity: 6% [?]
Posted on August 16, 2011 - by Nicole Humphrey Cook
30 Character Questions
In the middle of writing a chapter and something happens unexpected? Did a character say or do something you didn’t see coming? Perhaps it was something that made you realize he or she is not who you thought they were.
Are you looking to get to know each of your characters better? For fun, try asking them these 30 questions and you might just get the answers you’re looking for. Be as detailed as you can for each character and it will make writing them, so much easier.
- Tell me about yourself in detail.
- Who are your parents? Tell me about them in detail.
- Do you have siblings? Tell me about them.
- Who is your best friend? Why? What makes them special? What do you like about them/not like about them?
- Who was your first love? Your second love? Why? What made these relationships work and subsequently not work?
- Tell me about your first kiss. Who was it with? What made it special/awful/perfect/memorable?
- What is your definition of love?
- What are your dreams?
- What did you eat for breakfast today? And lunch? And Dinner? Are these typical meals for you?
- It’s 8pm, tell me about your day today in detail.
- Tell me about your week so far.
- Tell me about this month so far.
- What did you wear today? Describe what you wore in detail and then explain what your favorite thing to wear is.
- Describe a special moment.
- Tell me about your favorite memory.
- When is your birthday? Tell me about your favorite birthday so far?
- What are your beliefs in life?
- Tell me about your most memorable first ____? You fill in the blank.
- What are your short term goals? Long term goals?
- What do you regret having said or done? Tell me about it.
- Tell me about your favorite childhood memory.
- What upsets you or makes you angry? Why?
- What makes you cry? Why?
- What do you do to make yourself feel better when you’re having a bad day?
- What are you scared of? What do you worry about?
- Describe your favorite place in detail. Why is it your favorite place?
- Do you miss someone? Tell me who it is and why.
- Do you miss something? Tell me what it is and why.
- What kind of vehicle/mode of transportation do you drive? What’s currently in your vehicle, if applicable? Be sure and check the glove box, the center console, the trunk and the seat pockets. Check under the seats too! Why is each item there?
- What’s in your bag? Purse? Tote? Backpack? etc. Why is each item there?
Popularity: 11% [?]
-
Connect with me
