That do writers do on Friday night? The same thing they do every night….

I’m told even Ninjas procrastinate, but I don’t believe it.

Angela WRITE Now is not a procrastinator by nature, putting things off gives her anxiety, anxiety gives her heart burn, and it’s never worth it. But sometimes I enjoy working at a less frantic pace, and usually it looks like this:

I don’t believe that twitter= procrastination. I tweeted my way trough the 3 day novel contest and not only finished, but had the desire to do it all over again this year. I understand some of you don’t know when it call it quits though, and this blog is for you.

Every writer knows what they do while they blow something else off. Be it Twitter, Bejeweled, or organizing their twenty-seven different colors of post-its.(Yes I did count thanks) The key to cutting yourself off is in your attitude as a writer. See this post to get your attitude adjustment.

Self control is your number one tool as writer. With out it, you have nothing but a desire you can’t act on as you lack the ability to make yourself write. As I have stated before though, you can control this by learning routine. It takes just two weeks to make something habit. Small changes can make a big impact on the product you turn out.

Think about something you would like to take two weeks to change about yourself, or who you are as a writer. Post here what that is, and if you achieve your goals I will enter you to win a prize. (Here is a hint, it involves books) One winner for my two week challenge. I will give everyone until the 14th of September to let us know what you achieved, and on the 15th I will post the winner along with a big announcement!

Put this button on your blog so we know who is taking 2 weeks to be strong!

I’m a CAMPAIGNER (only not that sort)

Now, I know what you’re thinking. Angela you don’t believe in “Platforms” in the same way other writers do. The in crowd knows this; because they remember this blog:

WHY DO I NEED A PLATFORM? THIS SOAPBOX WORKS FINE

“If you are a politician, and you campaign on health care reform, that is called your platform. If you are a nonfiction writer you would need something that would make you an expert in your field, or qualified to write about your subject. Do you have a cooking blog that reaches 100k? That would be your platform. Are you a show dog judge with years of having your name out there? That would be your platform.

So how does any of this relate to the fiction writer?

It’s not like Amanda Hocking is qualified to write young adult vampire novels because she is a young adult vampire. I mean she could be, but I don’t know her business.

The more information I see on platforms for fiction writers, the more I realize they are using platform in the place of something else. A combination of audience, fan base, and followers. I see some people ask “What is your platform?” But what I hear is, “Who is going to buy your book?” Who, not what is the important part…”

While I still believe that, Rachael Harrie is an awesome writer type who likes to help other writers. Since I dig the cause, and love the opportunity I won’t be arguing about the verbiage. (I don’t really like campaigns either, I mean seedy politicians? No thanks )

See the deets on where you can get in on the awesomeness here:

http://bit.ly/mWdhUn

What is the Campaign?
Basically, the Campaign is a way to link those of us in the writing community together with the aim of helping to build our online platforms. The Campaigners are all bloggers in a similar position, who genuinely want to pay it forward, make connections and friends within the writing community, and help build each others' online platforms while at the same time building theirs.

Mike Mullin Guest Blogs "How to Get 100 Monkeys to Write Your Novel"

Today on Angela WRITE Now, Mike Mullin is visiting. If you haven't heard of him, you--are rock dweller, and the rest of you know how I feel about those! Mike is a fab friend and a fab writer, read the deets bellow then comment on the AWESOMENESS.



Mike Mullin’s first job was scraping the gum off the undersides of desks at his high school. From there,
things went steadily downhill. He almost got fired by the owner of a bookstore due to his poor taste in
earrings. He worked at a place that showed slides of poopy diapers during lunch (it did cut down on the
cafeteria budget). The hazing process at the next company included eating live termites raised by the
resident entomologist, so that didn’t last long either. For a while Mike juggled bottles at a wine shop,
sometimes to disastrous effect. Oh, and then there was the job where swarms of wasps occasionally
tried to chase him off ladders. So he’s really hoping this writing thing works out.

Mike holds a black belt in Songahm Taekwondo. He lives in Indianapolis with his wife and her three cats.
ASHFALL is his first novel.


About ASHFALL

Many visitors to Yellowstone National Park don’t realize that the boiling hot springs and spraying
geysers are caused by an underlying supervolcano. It has erupted three times in the last 2.1 million
years, and it will erupt again, changing the Earth forever.

Fifteen-year-old Alex is home alone when the supervolcano erupts. His town collapses into a nightmare darkness, ash, and violence, forcing him to flee. He begins a harrowing trek in search of his parents
and sister, who were visiting relatives 140 miles away.

Along the way, Alex struggles through a landscape transformed by more than a foot of ash. The disaster
brings out the best and worst in people desperate for food, clean water, and shelter. When an escaped
convict injures Alex, he searches for a sheltered place where he can wait—to heal or to die. Instead, he
finds Darla. Together, they fight to achieve a nearly impossible goal: surviving the supervolcano.


The first two chapters are available on his website: www.mikemullinauthor.com. You may reprint the
first two chapters in whole or in part on your website so long as you do not charge anyone anything to
access them.

How to Get 100 Monkeys to Write Your Novel

Step 1:

Buy beer. This is actually a generic step 1. Assembling a grill? Buy beer. Cooking a cake? You guessed it, buy beer.

The type of beer matters. You want a classy brand, like Budweiser. It’s the King of Beers. There’s nothing classier than that. You’re not going to lure any monkeys to your writing cave with that Natural Light crap.

Also, if this plan fails horribly, at least you have beer.

Step 2:

Use beer to lure monkeys out of zoo. Bring extra for Zoo Security.

Step 3:

Share smuggled beer with Bubba, your new cellmate. Offering Bubba Natural
Light is even worse than offering it to a bunch of monkeys. You’ll be glad you
bought Bud.

Step 4:

Buy 100 Mac Air laptops for your monkeys. Émile Borel’s monkeys may have
been content with typewriters, but modern monkeys don’t work on that crappy
outdated equipment.

Step 5:

Buy a snowshovel. Yes, even if you live in Las Vegas. It’s for cleaning flung monkey
poo off your walls, not fluffy white stuff off your driveway.

Step 6:

Dig a basement. Or lure 100 gorillas away from the zoo to do it for you.

Step 7:

Give up, drink the beer yourself, and hire Angela Kulig to ghostwrite. She cranks
out 10,000 words a day. What do you need monkeys for anyway?

Angela & The Weekend of Overwhelm

This weekend seems never ending, and it only just stared. If you know me, you know I view success in the form of completion of my goals and piles of checked off to do lists. If you were paying attention, you would notice that I was absent for most of the week.

The first thing that went wrong was, Heroes & Vallenez mysteriously got unformatted. I opened it a few days prior to copy and paste the first 3 chapters of it for an agency that requested it. When they then requested the full I opened it again and everything was wrong! There was no paragraphs, the line spacing was right in some places and insane in others, there was random indention through out. IT WAS AWFUL.

I cried.

Well the stress may have tanked my immune system, because right after that I got sick. The kind of sick that knocks you out, and then drags you back to its cave of disease until you are strong enough to fight it off.

So I am better now, and I still have a manuscript to reformat so I can submit. Lucky the fantastic lady who requested it is very understanding and told me not to rush. I also have a guest blog post due for early next week, a anthology piece that needs to be edited, all that writing I didn’t get done this week, and OH the outline for my 3 Day Novel Contest entry.

Really hardly anything at all. {Chokes, gags, faints.}

If you were wondering where the last installment of HOW TO BE A BETTER WRITER was last Sunday, you should know Windows Live Writer—my usual blog editor of choice—would absolutely not work all week. It basically ate my soul, and being sick and over worked did not lend it’s self to finding a replacement. Don’t worry, it will be up tomorrow—or maybe even later tonight.

OH and I just remembered, I have to read a book and write a review… oh boy. See you later, Angela needs more coffee WRITE now.

Angela WRITE Now Picks a Fight on the Internets

I once said I’d use this song if I ever had to go back in time to kick someone's butt. Well, why put off until tomorrow what I can use in a metaphorical sense today!

Tell That Mick That He Just Made My List of Things to do Today:

I wouldn’t piss to put you out…

It’s not that I am a violent person. I’m not. But I believe in things, and I even believe in some people. If you are unfortunate enough to try and tear down something I stand for, or attack someone I have personal faith in, I will not just turn my back. Even if it is just some ignorant troll on the internet.

I refuse to just ignore zealots who attack things or people that are important to me. I just wont do it. I am sorry if you think this makes me a bad person.

In specific regards to writing; I spend a lot of time on my blog and in my writing chats I run disproving inaccurate things people have said about publishing. I also spend a lot of time showing people where they can find the information they need from creditable sources. Does that make me an expert? The world may never know, but I do understand a fair amount about the process. I’d say 95% of what ends up on this blog is about writing and publishing. So it’s offensive to me when people spew out that I am ignorant to whole thing. When they attempt to discredit me behind a smoke screen.

Tell me I am wrong and call me an idiot, but do it to my face.

I’m Taking Over the World with Ali Cross. The GOOD NEWS Is You’re Invited.

I’ve told you about living under rocks.

 

NiNoCon DETAILS!

When: Saturday, February 4th (with kick-off Friday night)

Where: my brand new fancy-dancy website: NinjasWrite!

What: Ninja Novel Con (NiNoCon) a writer's conference that blows the lid off the box

Take the rest of August to put your own mark on this first annual conference by playing our #ninjatag contest!

Come up with the best tagline for our new conference and YOU could win a $50 Amazon gift card

and, even better, bragging rights!

To enter, just tweet your tagline using the hashtag #ninjatag.

You can enter as many times as you like between now and September 1st!

ALSO I need to talk about this:

My friend @ponies_studios is designing the real cover, until then this is a rather sad display of my limited skills that will serve as a placeholder when I talk about it.

What is Haunted Souls for Haunted Souls? It’s an Anthology of ghost stories that are Christmas/ Holiday/ Winter related. All proceeds will be going to Operation Homefront.

How can you be a part of this awesomeness? It’s easy, write a story and then submit to me at my email address you have on file or tell me on twitter and I can send you my address. When you send it to me, I will forward it to a panel of readers that will decide if you make the cut. Stories must be received by October 3rd.

Story Details: As previously stated they must all be ghost stories that are Christmas/ Holiday/ Winter related. They must also be between 3k-6k words in length, and as free of mistakes as you can get it yourself. I will have people who will help in the editing the final version, but since you are competing against others you wont be putting forth your best product if you don’t absolutely try to make it perfect.

What is a free pass, and how can I get one? If you have previously worked with me in other anthologies/ or in a different professional setting, and would like to be a part of Haunted Souls just let me know and I will keep a spot warm for you. Since I know we have other deadlines, since you do not have to be prescreened you may have until October 15th to complete your work.

BREAK! Now comment on NiNoCon and Haunted Souls below!

How to Be a Better Writer THIS WEEK

This is the second installment of how to be a better writer. Last week we focused on how to be a better writer TODAY and you can find that here:

How to Be a Better Writer TODAY

Now, on to how to be a better writer this week.

Step #1 Sit down.

Step #2: Acquire the tools needed to make your weekly schedule, and then do it. Angela WRITE Now has mad OCD like you would not believe. She is the queen of the scheduled chaos but she does understands that not everyone can live this way so remember the key points.

Write down all your commitments that have to be done at a certain time. Like when you are at work and when you have to not forget to pick up the kids. Figure out when you have time to write (edit, revise, etc.) write those times in your schedule. Best not to get a little carried away with your first time. Looking for the perfect time slot? Try #writingatgunpoint Monday-Thursday on twitter at 6:30 PDT and the most important part; write when you say you will.

Step #3: Pick one day a week (at least) and commit to improving yourself as a writer. I think as artists, we know what we need to improve on even if we don’t want to hear it.Take this time to make yourself better. You can read up on how to write a killer query letter or review comma usage. You can do what you need to do, and no one else need know about it.

Step #4: Agree to help a friend. Preferably with their writing. Offer to read something for them, critique something for them, tweet some helpful links, or… I don’t know, start an online writing conference with an arch rival and then get some KILLER names to sign up to teach classes at it. Any little thing helps.

Step #5: Remember everything you needed to do to make yourself a better writer TODAY.

BIG announcements coming your way soon, but I maybe just let one slip. The rest of them involve all my releases happening at the back half of the year, and how you can be a part of a very important one. Details coming soon!