March 2019 - K.V. Fischer

APODS – Analysis: The Three Ps, Part Two by Amanda Cabot

Last month we began our discussion of the three Ps

Personality Type
Present Use of Time
Productive Times

and talked about personality types. This month we’re going to conclude the analysis phase of APODS by looking at time. You’re probably saying, “It’s about time – pun intended,” since one aspect of APODS is time management. But before you can manage time, you need to understand how you’re currently using time and when you’re most productive, which is what we’re going to do this month.

APODS, Amanda Cabot, 3 Ps — Collect Data Using a Calendar

While you may think you know the answer to both questions, I challenge you to spend a week collecting data that will either confirm or refute your opinions. All you need is a simple calendar. You’ll note that this one is divided into half-hour increments and that it covers only the normal working day. You may want to extend this so that it covers all waking time.

Here’s the process:

Set a timer and at the end of each half hour, make a note of what you did for the previous thirty minutes. If you’re tempted to skip this step and simply record your activities at the end of the day, I urge you not to yield to temptation. As someone who used to have to bill her time by half hours, I learned that it’s important – make that essential – to record your time at the end of each half hour. You may think you’ll remember everything you’ve done during the day, but – trust me – you won’t.

If you felt particularly productive during a half hour, highlight it.
At the end of the week, categorize how you spent your time. Suggested categories include but are not limited to writing, work (if you have an outside job), recreation/personal, family, friends, cooking/cleaning/other housework, TV, social media. This becomes key input to our next phase: priorities.

After you’ve characterized your time, note the times that you highlighted as being most productive. Is there a clear pattern?

Do you think you’ll be surprised? You won’t know until you’ve tried it.

And if you’re wondering why we’re doing this, it’s because our goal is to identify the best time to write and ultimately to find a way to write during that time. While it’s easy to say, “I’m a morning person” or “I’m a night person,” the answer is more complex. You need to consider the entire week, since some days may be better for you than others.

We’ve reached the end of the Analysis phase. If we’ve done this well, each of us has a better understanding of who we are, when we’re most likely to do our best writing, and what other activities are keeping us from doing that writing.

Next month we’ll start prioritizing.

Amanda Cabot is no stranger to getting to “The End.” She juggled a sixty-hour a week job with nonnegotiable deadlines and building a house long-distance at the same time that she wrote two books a year. Whether or not she kept her sanity during that time is debatable. Amanda is the best-selling author of over thirty novels, eight novellas, four non-fiction books, and what she describes as enough technical articles to cure insomnia in a medium-sized city.

Her most recent release is A Borrowed Dream, the second in the Cimarron Creek trilogy.

Amanda Cabot, Cimarron Creek, A Stolen Heart — A Borrowed Dream by Amanda Cabot Cimarron Creek Trilogy

You can find Amanda at:

www.amandacabot.com
https://www.facebook.com/amanda.j.cabot
https://twitter.com/AmandaJoyCabot/
http://amandajoycabot.blogspot.com/

APODS – Analysis: The Three Ps by Amanda Cabot

As we continue the analysis phase of APODS, we’re going to discuss what I’ve called the three Ps:

Personality Type
Productive Times
Present Use of Tim

This month we’ll address the first one. If that sounds a bit intimidating, don’t worry. The goal is not to change your personality but to understand it, since understanding is the first step toward becoming more productive.

Amanda Cabot, time management, writing, publishing, books, articles, A Borrowed Dream, Cimarron Creek trilogy, fiction, non-fiction, deadlines, why write, dreams, fear, success, rejection, priorities — Personality Types

How many of you have taken the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator assessment? If you haven’t, I highly recommend that you do so. There are online sites that offer free versions, and while they may not be as complete as the real MBTI, they might give you some important insights into why finishing a book is relatively easy for you or why “The End” seems elusive.

The result of the MBTI assessment is a four-letter personality type. Each of those letters relates to one of four elements and describes your preferences for:
– How you energize yourself (Extraversion or Introversion)
– How you learn about the world (Sensing or iNtuition)
– How you make decisions (Thinking or Feeling)
– Whether you prefer closure or options (Judgment or Perception)

While they’re all important for understanding how you communicate and how you view life, the critical one for getting to “The End” is the final one.
Why? Let’s look at the differences in personalities between those whose preference is J (which stands for Judgment, but not Judgmental) and those who are Ps (Perception).

A person who scored high as a J likes control, structure, and organization. A J wants to make decisions and come to closure. On the other hand, a P is spontaneous and wants to understand rather than control. A P prefers flexibility and is open to new options and gathering more information. While Ps will probably never suffer from writer’s block, they will have more trouble getting to “The End” than a J.

Even if you haven’t taken the MBTI assessment, think about yourself and your approach to writing. Do you find yourself excited and sometimes sidetracked by possible new plot points for your book, or, once you’ve started the book, do you feel compelled to finish it? The answer may help you understand whether you’re a J or a P.

If you’re a J, you may still be challenged to finish a book, but chances are you’ll have an easier time than a P. So, if you’re a P, should you give up writing, knowing it could be difficult to reach “The End”? Absolutely not. As I said at the beginning of this post, the important thing is to recognize your personality type and how it impacts your writing. Strong Ps can – and do – write books. The techniques that we’re going to discuss over the next few months are designed to help everyone, but they’re particularly useful for Ps.

See you next month! And in case you were wondering, I’m an ENTJ with both the N and J being very strong.

Her most recent release is A Borrowed Dream, the second in the Cimarron Creek trilogy.

You can find Amanda at:

www.amandacabot.com
https://www.facebook.com/amanda.j.cabot
https://twitter.com/AmandaJoyCabot/
http://amandajoycabot.blogspot.com/

WRITERS BEWARE OF THE LEGAL PITFALLS — COPYRIGHT BASICS Part 1

In my first post, some off the wall lawsuits reminded us of the importance of avoiding legal pitfalls. This week we will address some copyright basics. As a reminder, this series is provided as a general educational resource ONLY. It is NOT legal advice. If you have any legal questions, please see your attorney.

copyright, Constitution, legal protection — Copyright Basics

Let’s start with the copyright basics.

The U.S. Constitution (Art. 1, Sec. 8, Clause 8) provides the legal framework for Copyright protection which gives Congress the power “to promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries.” Certain exclusive rights are provided to authors over their works to which they may use to their financial advantage. The purpose is to encourage individuals in their pursuit of intellectual and artistic creations

What is copyright?

Copyright is a form of protection provided by the laws of the United States
(Title 17, U. S. Code) to the authors of “original works of authorship,” including:

literary,
dramatic,
musical,
artistic,
and certain other intellectual works.
This protection is available to both published and unpublished works.

What does it protect?

Copyright protects the author’s exclusive right to reproduce and publish her original work, perform, distribute copies, adapt the work, and authorize others to do the same.

What type of works are copyrightable?

“Original works of authorship” that are “fixed in any tangible medium of expression.” As of January 1, 1978, the protection attaches to original works as they are fixed in a tangible form of expression, such as handwriting as it flows from the pen onto the paper, audiotape, computer, typing, or radio. Because ideas or concepts are not fixed in tangible form, they are not copyrightable, but business processes may be subject to patent protection.

Original does not need to be novel to have copyright protection, it just needs to be “independently created,” — not copied. Two authors who do not know of each other could each create works that are identical, and therefore not novel, but both are considered “original” and entitled to copyright protection.

Another required element is creativity which is different from original. Creativity requires that the author intellectually conceived of the work. Most work contains the fairly low level of creativity required. Quality or merit in a literary work is not required for copyright protection.

When a man tried to copyright his fried chicken sandwich, the First Circuit Court of Appeals pointed out that 8 categories of works are protected by federal copyright law

Literary Work

Dramatic works, including the music that accompanies it
Musical works, including any accompanying words
Pictorial, graphic, and sculptural works, Pantomimes and choreographic works
Motion pictures and other audiovisual works
Architectural works
Sound recording

Food recipes were absent from this list and the court rejected the man’s copyright claim outright stating: “A recipe – or any instructions – listing the combination of chicken, lettuce, tomato, cheese, and mayonnaise on a bun to create a sandwich is quite plainly not a copyrightable work.”

Popeye the Sailor, iron, trace minerals, minerals, blood, hemoglobin, anemia, heme iron, nonheme iron, vegetarians, vegetables, absorption, growth, development, animals, meat, RDA, Vitamin C, bone marrow, interference, oxalic acid, tannins, polyphenols, spinach, phytic acid — Fruits & Vegetables

You may not be able to copyright a recipe, but you might be able to trademark its name. So you can recreate the “dish” but can’t take the name. Although you cannot copyright a food dish, or a basic listing of ingredients, a recipe that contains original text may be protected by copyright

Who can make a copyright claim?

The work belongs to the author from the moment it is created in a fixed form. When there is more than one author in a joint work, the authors are co-owners of the copyright unless they made an agreement otherwise. When it comes to a work created by an employee that was commissioned by the author, the employer is considered the author for the purpose of copyright – the Work for Hire exception.

The next article will delve into the Work for Hire exception, transfers of ownership, and fair use among other topics.

The Editor Diet: Pantry Substitutes for Digestible Writing By Kathryn Ross

Welcome Kathryn Ross with The Editor Diet: Pantry Substitutes for Digestible Writing, a part of her Series—The Write Spice: Writing Tips for Flavorful Words.

A discouraging diagnosis triggered my anxiety meter to spin into the red zone.

“Looks like you’ll need to remove a few things from your diet, Mrs. Ross.” The nutrition counselor spoke with confidence. She found the culprits of my digestive woes and dispensed a prescription with nary a spoonful of sugar to help the medicine go down. “No sugar. No dairy. No eggs. No gluten. No soy. No. No. No.”

I went to this woman for help. I hoped for a quick fix. Maybe an encouraging word. But to hear her say “no” repeatedly to the hallowed mainstays of my diet, threw me into confusion.

“But . . . but . . . what can I eat?” Perhaps she would recant when she heard how disappointed I was at her advice.

“Oh, there’s plenty of clever substitutes you can make for these foods that will better agree with your system,” she said. “Once you make a habit of healthier food choices for your metabolism, I promise you’ll feel much better—and lose those pounds around your mid-section, too.”

REALLY?

The promised prize shone like gold before me. If only I could accept the new normal of breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Tooling me with a list of foods to avoid and a list of foods to eagerly eat, plus a tips sheet on shopping and meal preparations, I left her office with a sense of both trepidation and hope.

Was I brave enough to make the life changes necessary to feel better, lose weight, and gain back lost energy? Could I be consistent with the new meal plans and food preparation protocols I had to learn? Would completely redesigning my pantry, fridge, and freezer to toss out the old staples and welcome in new and unfamiliar ingredients be within my power?

The red zone of a troublesome health diagnosis can be a blessing or a curse. It’s all in the way you choose to accept it and act upon it—with open arms, or stubborn resistance.

Kathryn Ross, healthy word choices — The Editor Diet: Pantry Substitutes for Digestible Writing by Kathryn Ross

It’s the same with my writing. Knowing that what I’ve drafted needs work, I submit it to the review of an editor’s eye. In so doing, I must allow for my words to fall into the red zone of a marking pen diagnosis of where problems may exist, then follow editorial advice for healthy writing.

Thankfully, the English language is tooled with many options when choosing words and applying grammatical rules. Satisfying, healthier word choice substitutes slim down a written work suffering from illness, overweight, and lack of energy. The more those options are exercised, the easier they become to use on a consistent basis.

Here’s a couple writing pantry tips for your journey to healthier compositions:

Substitute vibrant vowels for weak “to be” verbs: In everyday speech, we use the simple verbs is, are, was, were, and the like to communicate. But on the printed page, a diet of such verbs wearies the reader and lessens the impact of the material communicated. Strive to edit out as many of these simple verbs as possible. Use meatier words to empower your story with greater accuracy of action.

Substitute similes and metaphors for bland adjectives and lazy adverbs: Descriptive language can make or break a written work. When it comes to adjectives and adverbs, too much dulls the reader’s senses or repels them entirely—like eating cake with too much sugar in the batter gives one an upset stomach. Vary your descriptive language with the use of similes and metaphors to cement understanding, allowing a reader to better apply and articulate what they read. Whether you’re writing fiction or non-fiction, the use of these powerful figures of speech add sticky sugar and spice to your work beyond the elementary use of simple adjectives and adverbial modifiers.

cinnamon, writers, spice, fall recipes, editors, healing, manuscript, pumpkins, cloves, Kathryn Ross, The Gatekeeper’s Key, Pageant Wagon Publishing, The Writers Reverie, publishing, thesaurus — The Write Spice: Writing Tips for Flavorful Words Kathryn Ross

Inventory your concepts to focus on the topic and curb redundancy: Fill your first draft with all your ideas. Review to determine where your focus is and how you’ll build on it. Sometimes, you may illustrate your point by restating it more than once. Creatively, you’ll need to decide what to delete and what to keep. Take a bold inventory of how you communicate your focused thought and in what order you arrange the details, guiding the reader through to a persuasive ending with impact. Be brutal when you cut—like I had to be when tossing all the flour and eggs and cheese from my kitchen to accommodate my new lifestyle diet. Never easy—but ultimately rewarding.

This is by no means a comprehensive prescription, but a good start towards adapting an editor’s diet for digestible writing. At first, you might think you are losing your writing voice by making such substitutions to your normal writing diet. In fact, you are finding your voice—a healthier voice—that will be fitness to your readers and strength to your continued growth as a writer.

clove, lemon oil, cinnamon, garden, harvestwriters, spice, fall recipes, editors, healing, manuscript — The Write Spice: Writing Tips for Flavorful Words By Kathryn Ross

Writer-speaker, Kathryn Ross, ignites a love of literature and learning through Pageant Wagon Productions and Publishing. She mentors writers as a book shepherd and publishes homeschool enrichment and Christian living books for home, church, and school. Her passion is to equip women and families in developing a Family Literacy Lifestyle, producing readers and thinkers who can engage the world from a biblical worldview. She blogs and podcasts at TheWritersReverie.com and PageantWagonPublishing.com. Connect with Miss Kathy on Facebook.

Search Engine Optimization for Writers – Unique

A few years ago, an SEO firm contacted me to write nutrition, business, and law related articles for its clients. The owner knew I was a Registered Dietitian and an attorney and he needed help. This opened a new door and I realized that one of the most important areas of expertise that SEO firms handle, is not just the behind the scene software pieces, but even more important is the content.

And ladies and gentlemen, as writers, content is what we do best.

It used to be that if you wanted people to find you and your business, you picked names for your business that would place you at the front of the phone book rather than toward the back. The days of the phone book are gone. What matters most is whether your name or business comes up in the first pages of a key word search. Instead of your fingers doing the walking, Google does the hunting.

Google/Yahoo, is like a battery operated toy — it is programed to find certain things, to like certain things, and to reject other things. The more it likes, the higher your ranking which increases the chance that your web presence will appear at the top of people’s search results — the top 10 is best.

Let’s take a look at some of those things:

Unique. If your content is unique, Google likes it. But how does Google define unique? The information itself doesn’t have to be new, but the way it’s expressed does. You can say the same thing many different ways and it can still be considered unique by Google. This is because search engines like Google use mathematical equations (algorithms) that take words literally. The rule of thumb is 3 words. Don’t use more than 3 of the same words in a row from something else that’s been published whether it was your own, or something you have permission to use. One of the SEO’s clients was an orthodontist who had different pages for 15 different locations. Each of the pages expressed the same type of content, who he was, the services he offered, and the outcome his patients could expect. I took his one page that expressed the information he wanted to present to the public and rewrote it 15 different ways. Google saw each page as unique and his ranking rose.

Hits. The number of visitors who visit your site and stay awhile. It’s not just how many visit, because if they visit and immediately bounce off, Google registers that they must not have liked what they saw since they made a quick exit. This decreases your ranking. Next, we’ll look at what draws people to your site and how do you increase those hits in a positive way.

Any suggestions?

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for Writers

SEO firms charge big dollars to enhance your web presence through search engine optimization. But what does that mean? How can technically-challenged writers benefit from SEO without breaking the bank? This article is the first in a series. Learn what the SEO firms don’t tell you and enhance your web presence.

But you may ask, with social media, is a web presence all that important? Everybody is on social media, aren’t they? It’s certainly easier to start a Facebook page than it is to create a web presence, so why bother?
The fact is that actual numbers of social media usage are far less than its publicity. According to comScore’s Unique Visitor Table for Feb 2016, Facebook with 206,480 million unique visitors actually fell behind Google Sites (243,601 million), Yahoo Sites (204,421 million) and Microsoft Sites (194,845 million).

important dates, book launch, advanced reader copy, Focus on Love, Candee Fick, brainstorming, fiction, nonfiction, inspiration, theme, marketing, social media — Marketing

Although there is a fluctuation in numbers, always remember that reality and press accounts do not necessarily jive.

Additionally, most people don’t use Facebook to research information that could direct them to you or your book. Forrester Research in their June 2013 study (How Consumers Found Websites in 2012, July 2013, Forrester Research, Inc.) found a majority of the United States adults prefer search engines over social media networks or alternate sources. The technique of choice is still SEO. As a technically challenged writer, if I can create a web presence, anyone can and make SEO work for them

Let me tell you a little about my background. First, I was (thanks to Candee Fick, I no longer am) the definition of what it means to be technically challenged. I’m good with the keyboard — I learned to type on a typewriter, at the time typing 120 wpm without mistakes. I was a senior attorney with a national company responsible for contracts, intellectual property, the document retention program, and was the in-house contact for the anti-trust law suits we were involved with as the repository of documents.

writing, publishing, story, fiction, novel, mistakes, writing mistakes, Thyme for Writers, journey, Stanley Hotel, Estes Park, Colorado, agents, editors, craft, skills, writers conference, tools, titles — The Author Toolbox

I had a secretary and I dictated my contracts, letters, and other documents. When my husband and I came out to Colorado for a 1 week vacation, I returned to discover my secretary did a major faux pas for the General Counsel and she was fired on the spot. Someone got the brilliant idea that instead of replacing her, they would use her salary to purchase a computer for every lawyer (there were 9 of us) and spread the duties of the remaining secretaries out over all 9 of us.

I was like a deer in the headlights.

I averaged between 110 and 150 contracts/month, 30-50 copyright registrations, not to mention all the fires I had to put out and everything else I was responsible for and I didn’t even know how to turn the “machine” on — yes, it was “the machine.” I couldn’t even imagine how I could function in my job. Needless to say, it was one of the best things that could have ever happened to me. They put me in a Word Perfect class and taught me how to turn on the “machine.” I was good to go.

Then came the World Wide Web, and another dragon reared its ugly head. I was always comfortable using the computer as a glorified typewriter, but … times change.

How comfortable are you with technology?

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Let’s start with the copyright basics.

What is copyright?

What does it protect?

What type of works are copyrightable?

Literary Work

Who can make a copyright claim?

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