You don’t have to be a Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald or even an Emily Dickenson to leave a literary legacy behind. In fact, you don’t even have to be a published author at all. How is this possible, you ask? The answer can be as simple as keeping a journal. Or, maybe you’re a little more advanced in age and have experienced some interesting things throughout your life, then the answer lies in writing down your memoirs for future generations to enjoy and even study.

A journal entry a day keep writer’s block at bay
Cheesy sayings aside, keeping a simple journal has dual benefits: you create a written record of your life as you experience it, and for those serious about writing, it helps to hone their craft. Writing every day, no matter what form, will help your writing improve. It’s all about practice, practice, practice.

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Are you a publisher that pays writers for their work? If so, I want to hear from you. I’m offering FREE "Writer’s Wanted Ads" to be published in my monthly newsletter. The only requirement is that you pay writers with real money (no paying in "contributor’s copies" or anything like that), and pay a fair sum for their work ($5 for a 50,000 word story is not fair).

This is 100% free for you to advertise your need for writers and even give your publication some more publicity. The newsletter in which your ad will appear is free for all subscribers, so this is a mutually beneficial relationship.

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Yesterday, as I was reading through my daily list of blogs that happily fed to me via Google Reader, I came across a post on the blog Writing Fiction by Crawford Kilian, a Canadian writer and professor, who answered a question from a reader regarding short stories. Basically, the reader wanted to know if he should publish a small collection of short stories.

Mr. Kilian’s answer is basically no. Unless you’re a big name author, publishing a book of short stories leads you down a long road to nowhere. Here’s what Mr. Kilian said:

Yes, some big names still publish short-story collections. But if you’re not John Updike or Alice Munro, your best chance of getting a collection into print is to have published a successful novel…with another good novel in progress. The collection will keep your readers happy until novel #2 is out.

Doesn’t sound very promising for us "unknowns". So the question remains: is writing short stories a waste of time? I don’t think so, and neither does Mr. Kilian. Writing short fiction is a great way to hone your skills as a writer as you move up the literary ladder and eventually start writing novels.

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After yesterday’s extremely depressing post about the grim realities of being a writer, I thought I’d try to cheer things up by writing about ways you can create your own brand of success.

All of yesterday’s post concentrated on publishing through traditional channels – getting a contract with one of the large publishing houses and placing your faith in them that they will get your book out to the masses (and it will actually sell). But why place your faith in someone else? You wrote your book. You put your sweat and tears into it. And you’re the one who has the most invested into the book (monetary and otherwise). Why not take control and make your own success?

I’m talking about self-publishing, of course. Before I begin, however, I want to say that this term still has a negative stigma attached to it. But that stigma lies mostly in the traditional publishing world. The great thing is self-publishing doesn’t even have to involve paying a company lots of money to publish your book – it doesn’t have to be that complicated, or that expensive.

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This is a follow-up to my post regarding the YouGov poll that said writing was the job of choice for many in Britain. If you didn’t read the original post, check it out: writing is popular job choice among Britons.

Since then, I came across a book blog posting by John Crace on the Guardian Unlimited website that gives a "reality check" to all of us who aspire to make a living from the written word. In Britain, as in the United States, trying to get published via traditional methods is very, very hard. And just because you’re novel is published, doesn’t mean you can quite your job and write full-time:

Most book manuscripts end up unwanted and unread on publishers’ and agents’ slush piles, and the majority of those that do make it into print sell fewer than 1,000 copies. So while there are a small number of writers making a decent living, something like 80% of published authors earn less than £10,000 per year.

In other words, around 80% of authors earn so little they’d be living in poverty if they didn’t supplement their income in some way (teaching seems to be the most popular route these days). Furthermore, many are still under the impression that once an author’s book is published, he/she can sit back and watch the money start rolling in. No marketing on the part of the author! Yes, more than a few writers still believe this. They believe the publishing house will spend a fortune to market their book. Wrong! If it’s your first book being published, the publishing company is going to spend the bare minimum to get it out onto the market. They save most of their marketing dollars for the big fish.

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When most people think of China, they might think of a large communist country that will soon host the Olympic Games. Or they might think of a country that is a growing trade partner with the United States – especially in light of all the recalls of defective products that have been making headlines lately.

One thing people probably don’t think of about China is literature. But thanks in large part to the internet, reading and writing novels has become the chosen hobby of millions of Chinese youth. In fact, according to a recent article published on Wired, the internet is boosting print sales of novels and even the word "novel" is the number one search term on the Chinese search engine Baidu.

"Novel," the top search term on China’s biggest search engine, Baidu, yields thousands of Chinese literature websites. More than 100,000 amateurs shirk mundane duties to publish their tales of fantasy and love in installments on these platforms. A handful of anonymous web authors have seen their pageviews soar into the upper seven digits. When that happens, print publishers come knocking.

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A new poll has revealed that writing is the job of choice for Britons. Writing tops even jobs in sports, which I always thought would be impossible. According to a Guardian Unlimited, the poll shows a division among age groups and even males and females:

More women than men yearn to write, while those aged between 35 and 50, and those over 50 were most likely to dream about getting published. The under-35s were most keen on becoming a sports personality.

So what can we credit for the surging popularity in writing? It appears, at least for the moment, that J.K. Rowling has inspired many (which is no surprise to me). With the super-success of the Harry Potter books, the article says there has been an especially large surge in submissions to publishers in children’s literature. The internet has also opened doors to the average-joe writer:

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Finding new and unique ways of promoting yourself as a writer is always a challenge. However, it appears that more and more writers are starting to take a lesson from indie musicians and other artists by creating a MySpace page.

I began to wonder if this is really an effective tool. There’s been a lot of negative press about the popular social networking site, mainly dealing with child predators. On the other hand, like musicians, writers are artists who need to promote their work in order to get noticed and sell books.

On a personal note, I used to have a MySpace account, but have since deleted it. My main reason for doing so was because I was getting swamped with friend’s requests from people I didn’t even know. It was kinda scary. However, my profile was just a personal one, and I never intended to use it as a way of promoting myself. But I was getting (and denying) requests to be "friends" from teens – and I’m in my twenties.

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Back when I was in the eighth grade and I first caught the "writing bug" the only thing I was interested in was science fiction. It was all I read, and all I wrote. I’m not sure if any of my early writings from that era have survived, but I’m sure I’d probably cringe if I read them again.

But what I find even more interesting is how my tastes in literary genres have changed over time. Like I said, the first genre I really got into was science fiction, then it morphed into more mainstream/popular fiction. After that was my mystery phase, where I only wrote and read mysteries. Many of those stories I still have and I’m afraid if I dust them off to read them again, they will spontaneously burst into flame for being so bad.

After my mystery phase, and around the time I started college, I began reading more literary fiction. The kind of fiction where the plot takes a back seat to character development and an entire short story could only span five minutes in the fictional world. As I progressed through literary fiction, I also started reading the classics.

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I usually don’t talk about blogging here, because my writing is aimed more at scribes of fiction and poetry (and maybe even screenwriters). But this is an issue I can’t really ignore because it affects the blogging world, just the same as it affects the world of freelance writing. Some even argue they are one and the same.

The buzz around town is that bloggers (mainly the political ones) are strongly in favor of unionizing to offer them some sort of protection that is normally afforded to employees of large corporations. I think it speaks volumes at how far blogs have come in the last few years that this is a serious consideration now.

I remember, more than five years ago, hearing about these funny things called "blogs" and the opportunity they give the average Joe. Eager to join this community, I signed up on Blogger.com and tried to write about current events. Well, Blogger was still young and had lots of technical problems. I ended up getting frustrated with the whole thing and gave up. Fast forward a few more years, I started another personal blog on Blogger. That one lasted for a while until I finally stopped posting (for reasons I can’t even remember) and eventually deleted it.

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