Facebook: Fun or Folly?

I've been a member of the social networking site, Facebook, for four years now.  But recently, I've considered closing down my account.

Why?

Because what started out as a bit of fun has turned into something that started causing me grief.

It all began back in 2008 when I'd first had a couple of novels published.  I wanted to promote them so I joined another social networking site called, Bebo.  Funny we hardly hear anything from My Space or Bebo these days, do we?  So, I built up a few friends and posted a little.  To be honest, I wasn't all that interested in it and only logged on occasionally.  I think I only ever updated my status a couple of times.

However one day I signed up for a  Facebook account.   I didn't use it and forgot all about it, then one day I got an email message to say that someone had added me as a friend.  It turned out to be a fellow author.  How she knew it was me I have no idea as there was no information about me on my profile page or a photograph.

I then added some of her author friends and some added me.  Then I added a profile pic and local friends started adding me, my number of Facebook friends grew and grew.  I began to enjoy socialising with new friends and old.  It was also a good way to promote my books.

It seemed as if nothing could go wrong...

But it did.  I was surprised how people could leave snipey comments on my wall and my inbox, sometimes seeming to get worked up by trivial things.  I ended up blocking a handful of people.  Things got worse though when I set up a Facebook group that grew so large it had over 1000 members from all over the world.  The aim of the group was to encourage people from my home town to socialise online with one another and we also had regular monthly meetings at a local pub

It was enjoyable to begin with, but then I started getting inbox messages every so often from group members moaning about other members, complaining about various posts at the group, people stirring things up at the group, etc.  In fact everything from bad feeling to bad mouthing others.  For some reason some members seemed to think as I ran the group I was responsible for all sorts of things.  I had messages from men who fancied particular females in the group.  I received messages from women harassed by male members of the group.  Things that went on outside in the community too they contacted me about.  It felt as though I was responsible for the world and his wife.

I decided for my own sanity to leave the group I had created.  Leaving behind a handful of admins who could run the group.  That in itself left a lot of members inboxing me with this, that and the other.  Tittle tattling about other members and stirring things up.  It got me down, from my understanding the group had now split into two since I'd left with two separate meetings planned at two different venues. It will go on with out me.  Mind you, I also received lots of lovely inbox messages too, people telling me how they would miss my posts and what a good administrator I was . But all of that wasn't enough to persuade me to hang on to the group.  I knew I was doing the right thing in letting it go as I've got back into novel writing and go online to chill out, which I couldn't do when I was having so many inbox messages from the group.  I also decided to deactivate my account of nearly 300 Facebook friends and have set up a new profile with just a handful of friends.

The benefits of doing this have been many fold so far.  I now have a bit of peace, no more inboxing with queries and comments that got me down, after all I wasn't getting paid to run the group and now I am interacting with less friends, but select ones that mean a lot to me.  I may add a few more when I've had a think who was on my old friend list.

I think you know when you have too many inconsequential Facebook friends when some suddenly show up in your news feed and you think, "Who on earth are you?"

Facebook is the thief of time.  I used to log on and would get so wrapped up in things that an hour would pass like 5 minutes and there would still be dirty dishes waiting in the sink.

Too much time is spent reading mindless statuses that read things like: "Just going to make a cup of tea!"  Or: "OMG can you believe this?"  The person who posts the latter is usually attention seeking to get others to ask what's going on.  A Drama King or Queen of the highest order.

Most of the comments people say on Facebook would bore us to death if those people made those same comments live in our living rooms or in the pub on a night out.  Yet, we end up pressing that inane 'Like' button to give our approval.

I now spend less time logged into Facebook and feel I am getting my life back. I spend longer doing the housework, listening to music, much more time in the real world than the Facebook one.  My mind feels more peaceful.

That quote, "Facebook: Wasting people's lives since 2004"was true in my case.  Is it true for you?

Seven Points to Consider When Presenting Your Work

Seven Points to Consider When Presenting Your  Work

I want to discuss the presentation of your work.  If you are into the swing of writing it’s quite possible that you might seek publication one day.  So it’s best to get into good habits now.  You need to format your work so that it’s reader friendly, in other words, so it makes the reader want to read on. 

Here are some tips I’ve learned along the way as a writer:

1.  Don’t use too many long words.  

Sometimes we feel the need to impress others, but if the language used is too elaborate it only seeks to confuse people and slow down the reading process.  After all, do you really want readers to have to pull a dictionary down off the shelf to translate?  

2.  Less is more.  

It’s easy to get carried away and repeat ourselves.  When we post to the group it’s more likely to be a first draft, but if seeking publication, it’s often a good idea to pare your work down beforehand.  Magazines, publishing houses and websites often have a specific word count and no matter how good your work is, they will reject it if it goes well over that count.

3.  Show lots of white space!  

This makes it easier on the eye for the reader.  Construct paragraphs.  Do you know when you need to use a new paragraph?  I always begin one when there is something new to say, or when a different person speaks.  I don’t indent paragraphs for online purposes, I just double line space.  I do the same thing when I submit to publishers.  These are known as ‘block paragraphs’.  Just the way I’ve written this!

4.  Avoid the use of ALL CAPITALS! 

Most of us have used all caps at some time or another, but it can give the reader the wrong impression, especially online as it’s associated with shouting.  As well as that, if you decide you want to submit your work for publication it becomes hard work as you have to rewrite the entire piece of work as editors will not accept work written in capital letters.

5.  Use speech marks.

When writing a short story, personal essay or novel, if you need to indicate someone is speaking then you need to employ speech marks, either “  ” or ‘ ’.  Various publishing houses use either.  I prefer “ ” for speech marks and ‘’ to emphasise a point.  For example:

“Hello Jenny,” he said. “It’s been a long time...”

Jenny stood, motionless.  Ten years ago Matt Webster had seemed ‘the next best thing to sliced bread’, now looking at him in his blue scrubs he looked like all the other staff in the Accident and Emergency department, overworked, tired and a little rough around the edges...

6.  Begin near the end... 

This might sound like strange advice but often people get so caught up in setting the scene that they forget to get straight into the action.  Immediate actions helps to hook the reader and makes them want to read on.

 For example:

Sam rose out of bed and padded softly down the stairs.  He switched on the kettle to make himself a cup of tea. It was going to be an exciting day, his stomach churned at the thought of it.  He popped a tea bag into the awaiting cup all the while mulling things over, should he leave it for another day?  Were all his plans in action?  Could something go wrong?

The sound of the phone ringing diverted his attention.  He lifted the receiver.  “Hi Mum...”

His mother liked to phone him first thing in the morning.  She wanted to know what he was having for breakfast...  

Etc, etc, etc,

Sometimes writers luxuriate by composing several pages of inconsequential prose before getting right into the action.

How about instead:

“Stop what you’re doing...” Sam hissed at the counter clerk.  “I have a gun in this rolled up newspaper pointing straight at you... and I’ll blow your fucking head off if you don’t do as you’re told...I want all those notes beside you bundled up and placed in this bag.”  He slid a black cloth bag across the counter.

The clerk’s eyes widened with terror, his face a deathly shade of grey.  Sam watched the man become putty in his hands.  This was going to be like taking sweets from a baby and he took great satisfaction in that.

See how more exciting it is to get immediately into the action? Sam had planned to hold up the post office.  Do we need to bother telling readers about him getting out of bed, making a cup of tea, taking a phone call from his mother, etc? Why bore readers with mundane facts and actions before getting right into the nitty gritty of the story?

7.  Avoid text speak.

With modern technology we are used to abbreviations, especially when it comes to our mobile phones, but that kind of thing doesn’t translate well for the reader.  ‘Wat U up to en?’ Isn’t going to work in a short story, essay or novel, not unless one of the characters is reading a text message.  It’s hard work for a reader to decipher text speak and publishers will definitely not publish work like that.

Presentation is important it can mean the difference between publication and rejection and more importantly, whether we hook the reader in!

Hollywood Screen Writing Techniques

Using Screenwriting Techniques to Plot Your Novel with Catherine Ryan Howard

http://writing.ie/writers-toolbox/writing-better/potting-and-planning/66-help-from-hollywoodland.html

Seven Ways to Inject Suspense into your Novel

Certain genres are renowned for being more suspenseful than others: horror, crime fiction and romantic suspense, but each and every book, no matter whether it's an Historical Romance or a Paranormal Fantasy, HAS to have a level of suspense interwoven between the pages!

All stories need to have this element, otherwise the reader isn't going to want to turn the page, it's as simple as that. So if you're interested in what makes a suspenseful page turner, then please read on...


Creating conflict in your novel is a given, otherwise there would be no story. If all went smoothly it would be as dull-as-dishwater, wouldn't it? They all lived happily throughout the story and ever after, yawn...

I've listed seven ways you can inject suspense into your novel:


1. Introduce your characters to their worst nightmare!

Find out about your characters beforehand. If possible, write up their likes and dislikes etc, and most importantly of all, find out what it is they fear most? What is it that causes their hearts to thump loudly, beads of perspiration to form on their upper lips, and the hairs on the back of their necks to stand on end? Find out what that thing or things are, and then give it to them, both barrels. For example, if your heroine is petrified of flying because her parents died in a plane crash, create a story where she HAS to take a journey on an airplane. If your hero fears water because he almost drowned as a young child, put him in a position where he HAS to get back in the water to rescue someone.

Introduce them to their worst nightmare and watch how they react!


2. Lull them into a false sense of security

When your character is really frightened of something, throw in a red herring. For example, if your heroine thinks she hears a noise outside, allow the plot to let her fears grow and grow. Let it be something quite innocuous, like the dustbin blowing over in the wind. Then, when she has reassured herself, breathing a sigh of relief, petrify her to death by placing a prowler outside her back door!


3. Throw the spotlight on at least two people

This might sound a little obvious, but for goodness sake, don't make the villain of the piece stand out a mile. Instead, have suspicion fall on at least two, possibly three characters. This will have the effect of your reader not really being sure until the end, when the other shoe falls! But, by all means, leave some clues and some red herrings along the way!


4. Pacing

Pacing is important to create suspense. In general, short, snappy sentences will enable the reader to race ahead so they feel their heart is beating in time with the frightened protagonist. Longer sentences tend to slow things down. You might want to speed things up for a car chase or slow it down for a love making scene. Imagine your novel as if you were watching it on the big screen. How would it be filmed? What would that particular scene look like to the audience?


5. The calm before the storm

Make use of the weather to good effect. Thunderclouds brewing overhead, often give the reader the feeling that something is about to happen [prophetic fallacy]. A bolt of lightening hitting the night sky, power lines down, a stranger at the door, etc. Think of the last time you watched a horror film; didn't the weather come into somewhere?


6. When all goes well, throw in a dead body!

When you hit a sagging middle of a novel, and you find there's no where to go, try throwing in a dead body. This doesn't necessarily mean that a character has to be killed off, although you might want to do just that, it can mean that something unexpected happens, such as the birth of a baby, etc. Something that injects a little more oomph into the plot!


7. Setting

Setting is very important as a tool to create suspense. What about that dark stone staircase covered in cobwebs? Or the elevator that suddenly stops in between floors? Choosing the right sort of setting can make or break a novel. And sometimes, placing the object or person the protagonist fears in an innocuous setting can make the story all the more horrifying.

Be cruel to your characters and watch them run for their lives!

Roll of the Dice

Decided to shake up my life at 50, deciding various options by the roll of a dice. When the sands of time are slipping through your fingertips, you got to do something different from your usual routine...Started yesterday afternoon and ended up in the pub instead of shopping. I always go shopping on Saturday afternoon, but this was far more fun!

Today, Dice woman rolls number 6:" Finish the novel 'The Clock Strikes Twelve'!" I almost finished writing this book a couple of years ago but put it to one side when life events took over. So, shall get back into the world of a serial killer this week. Should prove interesting...

The Writing Group

Some of you may be wondering what happened to my writing group featured on Secret Millionaire just over two years ago? Well, the good news is that it's still going strong! Even though I'm not working at the cancer centre any more, I've kept the group together by arranging monthly meetings for the past fifteen months. We meet upstairs in Wetherspoon and we ALWAYS have a great time!

We meet again tomorrow and it'll be party time for two of the ladies! We make a point of celebrating one another's birthdays. The group has been through so much together. There's a bond and everyone is as supportive as ever, it's taken on a life of its own. We've even got a couple of new members!

We wine, dine, chill-out and chat, and then when we've cleared our plates, we get down to some writing exercises. We've laughed, we've cried, we've cared and shared.

Whenever someone feels down, there's a gentle touch of a hand, a hug, or someone to pass a tissue.

It's more than a writing group, it's a writing family.

Long may our group continue!!

Inspirational Women: Bea Sheftel

A woman who had a huge impact on me and my writing life was, Bea Sheftel. Bea was an American writer who belonged to the same online group as myself, Momwriters. A Yahoo group of over a thousand writers, some unpublished, some published and some who even made the best seller list!

Bea Sheftel became a published writer at just sixteen years old. Her major writing influence was her father who wrote essays and poetry for the Knights of Columbus and the local newspaper.

Growing up in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, NY, Bea dreamed of being a writer. After decades of writing in between other jobs, she became a full time freelance writer and writing teacher.

Bea was published in fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. She was also the former editor of The Coventry Journal. She had an Associates Degree from Manchester Community College, and a Bachelor's in writing from the University of Connecticut.

She taught Writing Confessions, Memoir Writing, Scrapbook Creating and other classes through
http://www.universalclass.com

Her work appeared in several anthologies including Guideposts Books, Chicken Soup for the Nurses Soul, Cup of Comfort for a Woman's Journey and many others.

The thing that inspired me about Bea was that she wrote from the heart. Her writing was real, it had life and soul.

Bea died in March of 2005 and I wept for someone I had never met because her words touched me so.

Here's Bea's Memorial page at the Momwriter's website. You'll see what a huge impact she made on people!

http://www.momwriters.com/memory/BSheftel.html

You can still read some of Bea's online writing at the following websites:

http://ewritersplace.com/a005.php

http://www.hazelst.com/writer/bea_sheftel/02-04husbandmet.php

http://www.suite101.com/articles.cfm/homelessness

http://thedabblingmum.com/parenting/cookingstories/christmascookies.htm

Those hazy days of summer

Well, summer is here apparently for all of about twenty four hours. So enjoy it while you can. What's your favourite memory of summer? Is there a summer you'll never forget? Was it when you first fell in love or went on a special holiday?

I don't have one specific memory that's a lot better than others, but rather a collection of childhood/teenage images like a slide show of memories: playing by the river with my dog; making dens up the mountain, swinging on a tyre swing attached to a huge tree; paddling in the sea; going to the swimming pool and coming out with wet hair, towel rolled under my arm and queuing in the sweet shop around the corner; playing in the local park; going on Sunday school outings; lying in the garden for hours trying to swot up for my O'levels slathered in lashings of Ambre Solaire oil; getting ready for a night out at the local disco being proud of my new tan!

I'm sure you can think of a slide show of summer memories too. So what are they?

John Sullivan: A Legend

There's an interesting interview with John Sullivan, the creator of Only Fools and Horses, in July's edition of Writing Magazine. He had no formal training yet, he was able to tell a great yarn. Upon hearing of the scriptwriter's death in April, David Jason said:

"We’ve lost our ­country’s greatest comedy writer, but he leaves a great legacy – the gift of laughter."

What I loved about him was that he mixed comedy with tragedy. He had the ability to make you laugh one moment and almost cry the next. Like the episode where Rodney gets married and Del is left alone at the reception as the song, 'Holding Back the Years' plays. Gives me a lump in my throat every time I watch that.

He came from humble beginnings, leaving school at 15 and after a series of jobs, worked as a scene shifter. It was from there he became inspired to write for TV. He did his training on the job as it were. He purchased an ancient typewriter for £2.00 and spent the next two months with his friend working on a sitcom.

They received a rejection from the BBC, which put his friend off but Sullivan carried on writing and submitting and the rest is history.

Makes me wonder how many writers have been put off by rejection when if they'd had the motivation and passion John Sullivan had, the drive to push forward, they could have been writing legends!

Happiness is a Swedish Sunset

** I wrote this at my writing group this afternoon and thought I'd share it with you.**

I’ll never forget the summer I went to Sweden at the age of seventeen. I had been penfriends with Anna for about four years and she had already stayed at my home the previous summer. She’d thought the rows of terraced houses in the Welsh Valleys were tiny and was amused with how my family ate chips most days of the week.

Looking back on it, I can’t believe I was brave enough at that tender age to take a flight for the very first time to a strange country and from Heathrow Airport of all places!

Upon my return, my father told me that he couldn’t get over how I just walked off to the terminal gate without even turning around to say ‘Goodbye’ to any of my family. My mind must have been set on going off on an adventure.

I ended up taking a window seat inside the Boeing 707 seated next to two business men. I even remember asking them if I had to pay when the stewardess turned up with the tea and coffee trolley.

At one point during the journey, I thought the wing was about to fall off as the flap rose.

The main thing that hit me as we circled to land in Gothenburg Airport was the amount of trees and lakes. I’d never seen anything like it in my life.

Unfortunately, by then I had severe earache and felt nauseous. What didn’t help matters was, as I waited at the luggage carousel, eventually the crowd drifted away having retrieved their cases, and there was only one remaining. It looked like mine, but it wasn’t.

I was met by Anna and her family as I struggled to fight back the tears, explaining that I felt sick and my suitcase had gone off on its own journey some place else. Thankfully, Anna’s German Step-father, Harald, took control of the situation. He discovered my suitcase was in Tel Aviv and I’d have to wait another 24 hours for its return.

Anna’s home was fantastic. The family lived upstairs and slept downstairs. It was much bigger than our terraced home. Also, back in those days it seemed unusual for families to have two cars which a lot in that area seemed to have. Not only two cars, but also two houses. Their main house and their smaller summer house in the woods.

I witnessed my first Swedish sunset from the balcony that evening, reminding me of a quote by the author, Mark Twain: “Happiness is a Swedish sunset; it is there for all, but most of us look the other way and lose it” A Swedish sunset is thought to be the most beautiful sunset in the world. I can well believe it.

I spent a fortnight at Anna’s home and met her friends. We partied and picnicked and had such fun.

I saw wild elk in the woods, went to a crayfish and vodka party, visited the fair at Gothenburg, the Match Factory in Jonkoping, the second largest lake in Sweden, Lake Vettern, which is sixty five miles long and has an island with a giant in the middle of it. One of Anna’s friends, Annelei presented me with a miniature giant her father had carved for me. I had a ball that summer.

I was sad when it was time to leave a beautiful country where the sunset was pure poetry.

If You Could See What I Can See When I'm Cleaning Windows

Sometimes life knocks us off course. We are coasting along nicely, the horizon clear, only to be confronted with something that happens 'seemingly' out of the blue, creating a huge tidal wave. However, often it's not what happens to us at the time that causes the problem, but how we deal with it.

Making waves can be good. They shake us up by forcing us off our feet, pushing us into a period of transition. Change can be a positive thing, and although we might not think so at the time, if we look back on some of the big things that happened to us in life, those changes, even if they were enforced on us, were often for our own good.

During my own life, this has happened to me several times. At that moment the 'tidal wave' was upsetting, devastating, even. Yet, retrospectively, I can honestly say, I'm glad those things happened. The events shook me right out of my comfort zone but forced me to face up to reality.

We're all capable of becoming deluded.

We have blind spots to certain people and particular situations that aren't good for us. It wasn't until I studied 'The Johari Window' that I even knew those blind spots existed. I believe, it's because we don't always recognise the blind spots that cause the problems in the first place.

How often have we trusted someone only to think they were 'behaving out of character' when they did something that hurt us? The truth of the matter though, is the person concerned is more likely to have been behaving very much 'in character', and we simply haven't recognised it because we have a blind spot in that area.

And don't we feel foolish when we realise how shielded we've been behind 'rose-tinted spectacles'? Especially, when someone informs us, "Didn't you already know that?"

The truth was we didn't, or rather didn't want to recognise what was right before our eyes.

Sometimes we are our own worse enemies. We need to keep our metaphorical windows clean: the open, the closed and the hidden, because if we don't, we are going to get knocked off our feet one way or another!