tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-91804691731262495402009-09-23T23:05:31.028-07:00Articles and instruction in creative writing, personal history techniques, and genealogy journalism resources.writeathonnoreply@blogger.comBlogger13125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9180469173126249540.post-24626984754070322832009-04-03T20:40:00.001-07:002009-04-03T20:42:16.996-07:00Copyright 2004 by Anne Hart<br /><br />1. Abated <br />2. Abbreviated<br />3. Abided<br />4. Abjured<br />5. Abnegated<br />6. Abraded<br />7. Abridged<br />8. Abrogated<br />9. Abseiled<br />10. Absolved<br />11. Absorbed<br />12. Abstained<br />13. Abstracted<br />14. Abstracted<br />15. Abutted<br />16. Accelerated<br />17. Accelerated<br />18. Accented<br />19. Accepted<br />20. Acclaimed<br />21. Acclimatized<br />22. Accommodated<br />23. Accompanied<br />24. Accomplished<br />25. Accorded<br />26. Accounted<br />27. Accredited<br />28. Accrued<br />29. Accumulated<br />30. Accustomed<br />31. Achieved<br />32. Achieved<br />33. Acknowledged<br />34. Acquainted<br />35. Acquiesced <br />36. Acquired<br />37. Acquitted<br />38. Acted<br />39. Activated<br />40. Actualized<br />41. Actuated<br />42. Adapted<br />43. Added<br />44. Addressed<br />45. Adduced<br />46. Adhered<br />47. Adjoined<br />48. Adjourned<br />49. Adjudged<br />50. Adjudicated<br />51. Adjured<br />52. Adjusted<br />53. Ad-libbed<br />54. Administered<br />55. Admired<br />56. Admitted<br />57. Adopted<br />58. Adored<br />59. Adorned<br />60. Adumbrated<br />61. Advanced<br />62. Advertised<br />63. Advised<br />64. Advocated<br />65. Aerated<br />66. Affected<br />67. Affected<br />68. Affiliated<br />69. Affirmed<br />70. Affixed<br />71. Afforded<br />72. Agglutinated<br />73. Aggrandized<br />74. Agreed <br />75. Aided<br />76. Aligned<br />77. Allied<br />78. Allocated <br />79. Allocated<br />80. Allotted<br />81. Alternated<br />82. Amazed<br />83. Amended<br />84. Amplified<br />85. Amused<br />86. Analyzed<br />87. Anesthetized<br />88. Animated<br />89. Annotated<br />90. Announced<br />91. Answered<br />92. Anticipated<br />93. Antiqued<br />94. Appealed <br />95. Appeared <br />96. Appended<br />97. Appertained (to)<br />98. Applauded<br />99. Applied<br />100. Appliquéd<br />101. Appointed<br />102. Appraised<br />103. Apprised<br />104. Approached<br />105. Approved<br />106. Approximated<br />107. Arbitrated<br />108. Archived<br />109. Argued<br />110. Arose (from)<br />111. Arranged<br />112. Arrived<br />113. Articulated<br />114. Ascertained<br />115. Ascribed<br />116. Aspired<br />117. Assayed<br />118. Assembled<br />119. Asserted<br />120. Assessed<br />121. Assigned<br />122. Assimilated<br />123. Assisted <br />124. Associated<br />125. Assumed<br />126. Assured<br />127. Astonished<br />128. Astounded<br />129. Attached<br />130. Attained<br />131. Attempted<br />132. Attended<br />133. Attitudinized<br />134. Attributed<br />135. Attuned<br />136. Audio taped<br />137. Audiodidacted<br />138. Audited<br />139. Augmented<br />140. Authored<br />141. Authorized<br />142. Automated<br />143. Availed<br />144. Awarded<br />145. Backed<br />146. Banded<br />147. Banked<br />148. Bartered<br />149. Beaded<br />150. Became<br />151. Begot<br />152. Benchmarked<br />153. Benefited<br />154. Booked<br />155. Bought<br />156. Bought<br />157. Braided<br />158. Brailed<br />159. Branched<br />160. Branded<br />161. Brandished<br />162. Breaded<br />163. Bred<br />164. Broadcasted <br />165. Brought<br />166. Budgeted<br />167. Built<br />168. Built<br />169. Calculated<br />170. Calmed<br />171. Campaigned<br />172. Camped<br />173. Cantillated<br />174. Captivated<br />175. Carded<br />176. Cared<br />177. Carried<br />178. Carted<br />179. Carved<br />180. Catalogued<br />181. Catapulted<br />182. Centered<br />183. Chaired<br />184. Chaired<br />185. Changed<br />186. Channeled<br />187. Chanted<br />188. Characterized<br />189. Charged<br />190. Charted<br />191. Chartered<br />192. Cheered<br />193. Cherished<br />194. Chiseled<br />195. Chronicled<br />196. Cited<br />197. Civilized<br />198. Claimed<br />199. Clarified<br />200. Cleaned<br />201. Cleared<br />202. Clocked<br />203. Closed<br />204. Clued<br />205. Coached<br />206. Coded<br />207. Codified<br />208. Coifed<br />209. Collaborated<br />210. Collected <br />211. Colored<br />212. Comforted<br />213. Commanded<br />214. Commemorated<br />215. Commercialized<br />216. Commissioned<br />217. Communicated<br />218. Compared<br />219. Compensated<br />220. Competed<br />221. Compiled<br />222. Compiled<br />223. Completed<br />224. Completed<br />225. Complimented<br />226. Composed<br />227. Computed<br />228. Computerized<br />229. Conceived<br />230. Concentrated<br />231. Conceptualized<br />232. Conciliated<br />233. Concluded<br />234. Conducted<br />235. Conferenced<br />236. Configured<br />237. Congratulated<br />238. Congregated<br />239. Connected<br />240. Connoted<br />241. Conquered<br />242. Conserved<br />243. Considered<br />244. Constructed<br />245. Construed<br />246. Consulted<br />247. Consumed<br />248. Continued<br />249. Contracted<br />250. Contributed<br />251. Controlled<br />252. Converged<br />253. Conversed<br />254. Cooperated<br />255. Cooperated<br />256. Co-opted<br />257. Coordinated <br />258. Copyrighted<br />259. Copy wrote<br />260. Corded <br />261. Corrected<br />262. Correlated<br />263. Counseled<br />264. Counted<br />265. Countered<br />266. Courted<br />267. Created<br />268. Credited<br />269. Crewed<br />270. Critiqued<br />271. Crusaded<br />272. Cued<br />273. Cultured<br />274. Curtailed<br />275. Customized<br />276. Cut<br />277. Cycled<br />278. Dated<br />279. Davined (Cantillated ethnically)<br />280. Dealt<br />281. Debited<br />282. Debriefed<br />283. Debugged<br />284. Decentralized<br />285. Decided<br />286. Deciphered<br />287. Declaimed<br />288. Declared<br />289. Decoded <br />290. Decorated<br />291. Decreased<br />292. Dedicated<br />293. Deferred<br />294. Defined <br />295. Deflected <br />296. Deigned<br />297. Delegated<br />298. Deleted<br />299. Delighted<br />300. Delighted (in)<br />301. Delineated<br />302. Delivered<br />303. Demonstrated<br />304. Demurred<br />305. Demystified<br />306. Denominate<br />307. Denoted<br />308. Depicted<br />309. Deprogrammed<br />310. Deregulated<br />311. Derived<br />312. Described<br />313. Designed<br />314. Detailed<br />315. Detected<br />316. Determined<br />317. Detoured<br />318. Developed<br />319. Devised<br />320. Devolved<br />321. Devoted<br />322. Diagnosed<br />323. Dialogued<br />324. Diced<br />325. Dichotomized<br />326. Dictated<br />327. Differed<br />328. Digested<br />329. Digitized<br />330. Diluted<br />331. Dined<br />332. Directed<br />333. Disagreed<br />334. Disclosed<br />335. Discovered<br />336. Discussed<br />337. Dispatched<br />338. Dispersed<br />339. Displayed<br />340. Dissolved<br />341. Distributed<br />342. Dithered<br />343. Diversified<br />344. Divided<br />345. Divined<br />346. Divulged<br />347. Docked<br />348. Documented<br />349. Donated<br />350. Doused<br />351. Drafted<br />352. Drew<br />353. Drove<br />354. Earned<br />355. Edited<br />356. Editorialized<br />357. Educated<br />358. Effected<br />359. Effected<br />360. Effloresced<br />361. Eked out<br />362. Elaborated<br />363. Elasticized<br />364. Elbowed<br />365. Elected<br />366. Elegized<br />367. Elevated<br />368. Eliminated<br />369. Embroidered<br />370. Emended<br />371. Emote<br />372. Emphasized<br />373. Employed<br />374. Empowered<br />375. Encased<br />376. Encountered<br />377. Energized<br />378. Engaged<br />379. Engineered<br />380. Engraved<br />381. Enhanced<br />382. Enlarged<br />383. Enlightened<br />384. Enlisted<br />385. Enlivened<br />386. Enriched<br />387. Ensconced<br />388. Ensured<br />389. Entered<br />390. Entertained<br />391. Envisioned<br />392. Epigrammatized<br />393. Epitomized<br />394. Equalized<br />395. Erected<br />396. Eructed<br />397. Escorted<br />398. Established<br />399. Estimated<br />400. Etched<br />401. Etiolated<br />402. Eulogized<br />403. Euphemized<br />404. Evaluated<br />405. Evanesced<br />406. Evangelized<br />407. Evidenced<br />408. Evoked<br />409. Exacerbated<br />410. Exacted<br />411. Exalted<br />412. Examined<br />413. Excavated<br />414. Excelled<br />415. Exchanged<br />416. Exclaimed<br />417. Excoriated<br />418. Exculpated<br />419. Executed<br />420. Executed<br />421. Exemplified<br />422. Exercised<br />423. Exfoliated<br />424. Exhibited<br />425. Exhorted<br />426. Exonerated<br />427. Exorcized<br />428. Expanded<br />429. Expatiated<br />430. Expedited<br />431. Experienced<br />432. Explained<br />433. Explored<br />434. Exported<br />435. Exposed<br />436. Expressed<br />437. Extended<br />438. Extolled<br />439. Extrapolated<br />440. Extraverted<br />441. Facilitated<br />442. Farmed<br />443. Fascinated<br />444. Fastened<br />445. Faxed<br />446. Fed<br />447. Federalized<br />448. Felicitated<br />449. Ferreted<br />450. Fertilized<br />451. Fetched<br />452. Fictionalized<br />453. Filed<br />454. Filled<br />455. Filmed<br />456. Financed<br />457. Fired<br />458. Fitted<br />459. Fixed<br />460. Flattered<br />461. Flaunted<br />462. Flew<br />463. Flourished<br />464. Flowcharted<br />465. Fluctuated<br />466. Flummoxed<br />467. Followed<br />468. Forecasted<br />469. Formalized<br />470. Formatted<br />471. Formed<br />472. Formulated<br />473. Fortified<br />474. Forwarded<br />475. Found<br />476. Founded<br />477. Franchised<br />478. Fraternized<br />479. Freed<br />480. Froze<br />481. Fulfilled<br />482. Functioned<br />483. Functioned As<br />484. Furnished<br />485. Gained<br />486. Garnished<br />487. Gathered<br />488. Gave<br />489. Genealogized<br />490. Generated<br />491. Geneticized<br />492. Genuflected<br />493. Gesticulated<br />494. Gestured<br />495. Girded<br />496. Glorified<br />497. Gnosticized<br />498. Governed<br />499. Graded<br />500. Grafted<br />501. Granted<br />502. Graphed<br />503. Gratified<br />504. Greeted<br />505. Grew<br />506. Guaranteed<br />507. Guarded<br />508. Guided<br />509. Hafted<br />510. Hailed<br />511. Halted<br />512. Handled<br />513. Harbored<br />514. Harmonized<br />515. Harvested<br />516. Hastened<br />517. Head<br />518. Headed<br />519. Healed<br />520. Heaped<br />521. Heard<br />522. Heated<br />523. Helped<br />524. Hewed<br />525. Hired<br />526. Honored<br />527. Hoped<br />528. Hosted<br />529. Hugged<br />530. Humanized<br />531. Humored<br />532. Hustled<br />533. Hypnotized<br />534. Hypothesized<br />535. Identified<br />536. Ignited<br />537. Illustrated<br />538. Imagined<br />539. Immigrated<br />540. Implanted<br />541. Implemented<br />542. Implied<br />543. Imported<br />544. Imposed<br />545. Impressed<br />546. Improved<br />547. Incited<br />548. Included<br />549. Incorporated<br />550. Increased<br />551. Indexed<br />552. Indicated<br />553. Indicted<br />554. Indulged<br />555. Industrialized<br />556. Influenced<br />557. Informed<br />558. Initialized<br />559. Initiated<br />560. Inked<br />561. Inquired<br />562. Inspected<br />563. Inspired<br />564. Installed<br />565. Instituted<br />566. Instructed<br />567. Insured<br />568. Integrated<br />569. Interested<br />570. Interfaced<br />571. Internalized <br />572. Internationalized<br />573. Interpreted<br />574. Interviewed<br />575. Introduced<br />576. Intuited<br />577. Invented<br />578. Inventoried<br />579. Inverted<br />580. Invested<br />581. Investigated<br />582. Invigorated<br />583. Involved<br />584. Issued<br />585. Joined<br />586. Journalized<br />587. Journeyed<br />588. Judged<br />589. Juried<br />590. Justified<br />591. Juxtaposed<br />592. Keyboarded<br />593. Lamented<br />594. Laminated<br />595. Landed (in)<br />596. Landscaped<br />597. Launched<br />598. Leased<br />599. Lectured<br />600. Led<br />601. Left<br />602. Legalized<br />603. Legislated<br />604. Legitimized<br />605. Lessened<br />606. Lighted<br />607. Linked<br />608. Listened<br />609. Litigated<br />610. Loaded<br />611. Loaned<br />612. Lobbied<br />613. Localized<br />614. Looked<br />615. Lyricized<br />616. Magnetized<br />617. Mailed<br />618. Maintained<br />619. Managed<br />620. Manipulated<br />621. Manufactured<br />622. Marked<br />623. Marketed<br />624. Mastered<br />625. Measured<br />626. Mediated<br />627. Memorized<br />628. Mentored<br />629. Merchandised<br />630. Merged<br />631. Met<br />632. Microfiched<br />633. Micrographed<br />634. Migrated <br />635. Ministered<br />636. Modeled<br />637. Moderated<br />638. Modified<br />639. Molded<br />640. Monitored<br />641. Morphed<br />642. Mortgaged<br />643. Motivated<br />644. Moved<br />645. Multiplied<br />646. Multitasked<br />647. Narrated<br />648. Narrated<br />649. Navigated<br />650. Negotiated<br />651. Networked<br />652. Networked<br />653. Neutered<br />654. Neutralized<br />655. Normalized<br />656. Normed<br />657. Notaried<br />658. Notarized<br />659. Notated<br />660. Noted<br />661. Notified<br />662. Nourished<br />663. Nursed<br />664. Obtained<br />665. Officiated<br />666. Opened<br />667. Operated<br />668. Opined<br />669. Orated<br />670. Orchestrated<br />671. Ordered<br />672. Organized<br />673. Oriented<br />674. Originated<br />675. Outlaid<br />676. Outlined<br />677. Outnumbered<br />678. Outpaced<br />679. Outperformed<br />680. Outplayed<br />681. Outran<br />682. Outranked<br />683. Outshone<br />684. Outvoted<br />685. Outwitted<br />686. Overawed<br />687. Overcame<br />688. Overdid<br />689. Overheard<br />690. Oversaw<br />691. Overstepped<br />692. Overstretched<br />693. Overwhelmed<br />694. Overworked<br />695. Overwrote<br />696. Owed<br />697. Owned<br />698. Oxidized<br />699. Oxygenated<br />700. Paced<br />701. Packaged<br />702. Packed<br />703. Parented<br />704. Participated<br />705. Partnered (with)<br />706. Patented<br />707. Patterned<br />708. Perceived<br />709. Perfected<br />710. Performed<br />711. Persevered<br />712. Persisted<br />713. Personalized<br />714. Persuaded<br />715. Perused<br />716. Petitioned<br />717. Photocopied<br />718. Photographed<br />719. Piloted<br />720. Pinpointed<br />721. Pinpointed<br />722. Pitched<br />723. Placed<br />724. Planned<br />725. Planted<br />726. Played<br />727. Plotted<br />728. Pooled<br />729. Posed<br />730. Positioned<br />731. Posted<br />732. Practiced<br />733. Praised<br />734. Prayed<br />735. Predicted<br />736. Preempted<br />737. Prefaced<br />738. Preferred<br />739. Prepared<br />740. Presented<br />741. Presided<br />742. Pressed<br />743. Prevented<br />744. Probed<br />745. Proceeded (to)<br />746. Processed<br />747. Procreated<br />748. Procured<br />749. Produced<br />750. Professionalized<br />751. Programmed<br />752. Projected<br />753. Promoted<br />754. Promulgated<br />755. Proofread<br />756. Proposed<br />757. Proscribed<br />758. Prospered<br />759. Protected<br />760. Protested<br />761. Protracted<br />762. Proved<br />763. Provided<br />764. Publicized<br />765. Published<br />766. Published<br />767. Purchased<br />768. Pursued<br />769. Qualified<br />770. Quantified<br />771. Questioned<br />772. Queued<br />773. Quickened<br />774. Quilted<br />775. Raised<br />776. Ran<br />777. Ranged<br />778. Rated<br />779. Razed<br />780. Reached<br />781. Realized<br />782. Reaped<br />783. Reared<br />784. Rearranged<br />785. Reasoned<br />786. Recalled<br />787. Received<br />788. Recited<br />789. Recited<br />790. Reclaimed<br />791. Recognized<br />792. Recommended<br />793. Reconciled<br />794. Reconstructed<br />795. Recorded<br />796. Recouped<br />797. Recovered<br />798. Recreated<br />799. Recreated<br />800. Recruited<br />801. Rectified<br />802. Recycled<br />803. Redecorated<br />804. Redesigned<br />805. Re-Designed<br />806. Redistricted<br />807. Reduced<br />808. Reduced<br />809. Reenacted<br />810. Reentered<br />811. Re-Entered<br />812. Referenced<br />813. Refreshed<br />814. Registered<br />815. Regulated<br />816. Rehearsed<br />817. Rehired<br />818. Reimbursed<br />819. Reinforced<br />820. Rejoiced<br />821. Related<br />822. Released<br />823. Relinquished<br />824. Relocated<br />825. Remedied<br />826. Remembered<br />827. Reminisced<br />828. Remodeled<br />829. Renewed<br />830. Rented<br />831. Reoriented<br />832. Repaired<br />833. Replaced<br />834. Replenished<br />835. Replied<br />836. Reported<br />837. Reposed<br />838. Represented<br />839. Requested<br />840. Required<br />841. Requisitioned<br />842. Researched<br />843. Resequenced<br />844. Reshaped<br />845. Resized<br />846. Resolved<br />847. Resourced<br />848. Responded to<br />849. Responsible<br />850. Restored<br />851. Resulted<br />852. Resumed<br />853. Retailed<br />854. Retained<br />855. Retired<br />856. Retooled<br />857. Retorted<br />858. Retrained<br />859. Retrieved<br />860. Returned<br />861. Reunited<br />862. Revamped<br />863. Revealed<br />864. Reveled<br />865. Reviewed<br />866. Revised<br />867. Revived<br />868. Rewired<br />869. Roboticized<br />870. Robotized<br />871. Rolled<br />872. Rose<br />873. Rotated<br />874. Routed<br />875. Rushed<br />876. Sailed<br />877. Sampled<br />878. Sanitized<br />879. Saved<br />880. Sawed<br />881. Scanned<br />882. Scheduled<br />883. Scored<br />884. Screened<br />885. Scrimped<br />886. Sculptured<br />887. Secured<br />888. Selected<br />889. Selected<br />890. Sensed<br />891. Sequenced<br />892. Serialized<br />893. Served<br />894. Set objectives<br />895. Set up<br />896. Sewed<br />897. Shaped<br />898. Shared<br />899. Showed<br />900. Shredded<br />901. Signified<br />902. Simplified<br />903. Sized<br />904. Skilled<br />905. Socialized<br />906. Sold<br />907. Solicited<br />908. Solidified<br />909. Solved<br />910. Solved<br />911. Sorted<br />912. Sought<br />913. Spared<br />914. Sparked<br />915. Spayed<br />916. Specified<br />917. Speculated<br />918. Spiced<br />919. Spirited<br />920. Spoke<br />921. Sponsored<br />922. Spread<br />923. Stabilized<br />924. Staffed<br />925. Standardized<br />926. Starred<br />927. Stated<br />928. Stepped<br />929. Sterilized<br />930. Stimulated<br />931. Stored<br />932. Straightened<br />933. Streamlined<br />934. Strengthened<br />935. Stretched<br />936. Strolled<br />937. Strove<br />938. Structured<br />939. Styled<br />940. Styled<br />941. Subcontracted<br />942. Submitted <br />943. Succeeded<br />944. Summarized<br />945. Supervised<br />946. Supplied<br />947. Supported<br />948. Surfed<br />949. Surmised<br />950. Surveyed<br />951. Survived<br />952. Syndicated<br />953. Synthesized<br />954. Systematized<br />955. Tabulated<br />956. Tamped<br />957. Taught<br />958. Taxed<br />959. Teamed (up)<br />960. Telecommuted<br />961. Telemarketed<br />962. Telephoned<br />963. Televised<br />964. Terminated<br />965. Tested<br />966. Thwarted<br />967. Told<br />968. Tolled<br />969. Toughened<br />970. Toured<br />971. Traced<br />972. Tracked<br />973. Traded<br />974. Trained<br />975. Transacted<br />976. Transcribed<br />977. Transferred<br />978. Translated<br />979. Transmitted<br />980. Transported<br />981. Traveled<br />982. Treated<br />983. Trekked<br />984. Triumphed<br />985. Troubleshooted<br />986. Troubleshot<br />987. Trucked<br />988. Truncated<br />989. Trusted<br />990. Turned<br />991. Typed<br />992. Typeset<br />993. Ululated<br />994. Underscored<br />995. Understood<br />996. Undertook<br />997. Unified<br />998. United<br />999. Updated<br />1000. Upgraded<br />1001. Uplifted<br />1002. Used<br />1003. Utilized<br />1004. Validated<br />1005. Valued<br />1006. Varied<br />1007. Vaunted<br />1008. Venerated<br />1009. Ventured<br />1010. Verbalized<br />1011. Verified<br />1012. Videographed<br />1013. Videotaped<br />1014. Viewed<br />1015. Vindicated<br />1016. Visualized<br />1017. Vitalized<br />1018. Vocalized<br />1019. Voiced<br />1020. Volunteered<br />1021. Voted<br />1022. Vulcanized<br />1023. Waited<br />1024. Waived<br />1025. Watched<br />1026. Waved<br />1027. Weaned<br />1028. Weighed<br />1029. Weighted<br />1030. Welded<br />1031. Wholesaled<br />1032. Willed<br />1033. Wintered<br />1034. Withdrew<br />1035. Won<br />1036. Word processed<br />1037. Worked<br />1038. Wrote<br />1039. Wrought<br />1040. Xerographed<br />1041. X-Rayed<br />1042. Yearned<br />1043. Yielded<br />1044. Zapped<br />1045. Zeroed (in)<br />1046. Zipped<br />1047. Zoned<br />1048. Zoomed<br /><br />#<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9180469173126249540-2462698475407032283?l=how-to-books.blogspot.com'/></div>writeathonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9180469173126249540.post-68931656293565044852009-03-16T21:03:00.000-07:002009-03-16T21:09:06.157-07:00Word Play <br /><br />By Anne Hart (http://annehart.tripod.com) email: documentaryreviews@live.com. <br />Which Verbs Can You Use to Show Behavior or Emotion When You Write Tag Lines Describing the Spoken or Written Word?<br /><br />Tag lines describe the emotion felt and/or the behavior acted out when a person speaks or writes. For example, if you want to write a sentence that describes or shows a shy person, you might write, “He took a sudden interest in his sneakers.” The sentence denotes shyness, fear, or hesitation. <br /><br />The meaning becomes different, perhaps becoming an act of scrutiny, evaluation, comparison, or sizing if you wrote, “She took a sudden interest in her customer’s orthopedic shoes.”<br /><br />100 Ways to Describe Body Language With the Spoken or Written Word: Describing the Behavioral Side of He/She/They Said or Wrote Using a Line of Dialogue<br /><br /> Writing Tag Lines<br /><br />Often writing is described as amateurish when the author gets tired of using “he said,” when writing a line of dialogue in creative nonfiction writing or writing fiction of any genre. At the same time readers also get tired of distinguishing between two characters speaking a line of dialogue in a story, biography, quote, or interview when the writer keeps noting “he said, she said, they said.” What can you use as an alternative in both nonfiction and fiction writing? <br /><br />To get at the root of the issue, look for the action, the behavior inside the statement. You might write instead of he wrote or he said, the words, “he demurred.” One example of varied verb use in nonfiction writing could be a statement such as, “It will not do to assume that editorial jobs in music marketing can be handled only by college graduates that majored in music history and minored in journalism,” demurred ethnomusicologist, XYZ in “ABCDEF”, published 2009.<br /><br />In the example above, the verb “to demur” used here in past tense as “demurred” means to object , to take exception, dissent, or to protest. It’s more refreshing rather than being more amateurish, to use “demurred” rather than write the more familiar word, wrote as in the following: “…wrote ethnomusicologist, XYZ (in the publication “ABCDEF” published in 2009. You also could have wrote instead of he demurred, “he wrote.” But “he wrote” would not have illustrated the behavior, attitude, or emotion behind the act of writing the quote you are using. <br /><br />What other verbs could you have used instead of ‘demur’ (not to be confused with the adjective, demure-- which means reserved, modest, timorous, reticent, taciturn, bashful, coy, diffident, timid, quiet, or shy)? You could have used (as a verb in past tense) the following verbs: wrote, stated, reported, or noted. <br /><br />Simply by using the verb, “demurred” you only have not implied that the specific author stated a certain quote from a book or article, you’ve also conveyed to the reader that by writing one specific sentence, that the author… took exception to, disputed, and protested the assumption “that… editorial jobs in music marketing can be handled only by college graduates that majored in music history and minored in journalism.” See how one sentence can be used to convey the behavior, emotion, and body language or gestures behind a quote or a line of dialogue in a book, story, script, or article of nonfiction or fiction? <br /><br />The same type of tag lines that describe behavior can be used in writing text for print, for scripts written for narration in documentaries, or in text-based fiction or nonfiction whether you’re writing an article, story, book, or script. Tag lines are used to describe behavior and emotion. <br /><br />Here are some possible verbs you can use in print text to describe how a particular quote should be interpreted regarding what emotion, behavior, or body language is implied when an author writes. Tag lines help you figure out the intent of the writer or another reader’s interpretation of what he or she thinks the author might have meant when one writer quotes another writer in a book, speech, or article. You can use either the present or past tense of the verb, depending upon the editorial style that works best in the piece you’re writing.<br /><br /> More Verbs You Can Use Instead of He or She Said or Wrote<br /><br />Demur<br /><br />Present Tense Past Tense<br /><br />Contest Contested<br />Demur Demurred<br />Disapprove Disapproved<br />Dispute Disputed<br />Dissents Dissented<br />Expostulate Expostulated<br />Object Objected to<br />Protest Protested<br />Remonstrate Remonstrated<br />Take exception to Took exception to<br />Wrangle Wrangled<br /><br />Say<br /><br />Acknowledge Acknowledged<br />Add Added<br />Adduce Adduced<br />Advance Advanced<br />Affirm Affirmed<br />Allege Alleged<br />Announce Announced<br />Answer Answered<br />Articulate Articulated<br />Ascribe Ascribed<br />Asseverate Asseverated<br />Assign Assigned<br />Assume Assumed<br />Attest Attested<br />Attribute Attributed<br />Aver Averred<br />Avouch Avouched<br />Avow Avowed<br />Babble Babbled<br />Bark Barked<br />Bay Bayed<br />Bear witness Bore witness<br />Betray Betrayed<br />Breathe Breathed<br />Bring forward Brought forward<br />Bring to attention Brought to attention<br />Certify Certified<br />Cite Cited<br />Claim Claimed<br />Come out with Came out with<br />Communicate Communicated<br />Conjecture Conjectured <br />Convey Conveyed<br />Convince Convinced<br />Cry Cried<br />Declaim Declaimed<br />Declare Declared<br />Deliver Delivered<br />Depose Deposed<br />Detail Detailed<br />Dictate Dictated<br />Disclose Disclosed<br />Divulge Divulged<br />Estimate Estimated<br />Explain Explained<br />Express Expressed<br />Give evidence Gave evidence<br />Give one’s word Gave one’s word<br />Give the implication that Gave the implication that<br />Give the impression that Gave the impression that<br />Groan Groaned<br />Growl Growled<br />Hazard a guess Hazarded a guess<br />Heckle Heckled<br />Howl Howled<br />Hypothesize Hypothesized<br />Imagine Imagined<br />Impart Imparted<br />Imply Implied<br />Impute Imputed<br />Insinuate Insinuated<br />Introduce Introduced<br />Inveigle Inveigled<br />Journalize Journalized<br />Judge Judged<br />Let out Have let out<br />Make known Made known<br />Mention Mentioned<br />Mouth Mouthed<br />Name Named<br />Noise abroad Noised abroad<br />Offer Offered<br />Orate Orated<br />Phrase Phrased<br />Plead Pleaded<br />Pledge Pledged<br />Point out Pointed out<br />Predicate Predicated<br />Predict Predicted<br />Present Presented<br />Pretend Pretended<br />Profess Professed<br />Promise Promised<br />Pronounce Pronounced<br />Propose Proposed<br />Purport Purported<br />Put in words Placed in words<br />Put Put before<br />Ramble Rambled<br />Raspberry Raspberried<br />Recite Recited<br />Rehearse Rehearsed<br />Rejoin Rejoined<br />Remark Remarked<br />Render Rendered<br />Repeat Repeated<br />Reply Replied<br />Report Reported<br />Respond Responded<br />Retort Retorted<br />Reveal Revealed<br />Say Said<br />Shout Shouted<br />Shout Shouted<br />Speak Spoke<br />Speculate Speculated<br />Squeak Squeaked<br />State Stated<br />Sway Swayed<br />Talk Talked<br />Tease Teased<br />Tell Told<br />Testify Testified<br />Threaten Threatened<br />Utter Uttered<br />Vocalize Vocalized<br />Vote Voted<br />Vouch Vouched<br />Warrant Warranted<br />Whine Whined<br />Whisper Whispered<br />Yell Yelled<br /><br />Wrote<br /><br />Adapt Adapted<br />Author Authored<br />Authorize Authorized<br />Autograph Autographed<br />Cacograph Cacographed<br />Calligraph Calligraphed<br />Catalogue Catalogued<br />Chickenscratch Chickenscratched<br />Circumscribe Circumscribed<br />Commit online Committed online<br />Commit to paper Committed to paper<br />Communicate Communicated<br />Compose Composed<br />Contribute Contributed<br />Copy Copied/Copy-Edited<br />Correspond Corresponded<br />Correspond Corresponded<br />Dash off Dashed off<br />Digitize Digitized<br />Dirt-dealer Dirt-dealed<br />Draft Drafted<br />Dramatize Dramatized<br />Draw up Drew up<br />Drop a line Dropped a line<br />Drop a note Dropped a note<br />Edit Edited<br />Editorialize Editorialized<br />Email Emailed<br />Engross Engrossed<br />Epistolize Epistolized<br />Format Formatted<br />Gazateer Gazateered<br />Group Grouped<br />Handwrite Handwrote<br />Hawk Hawked<br />Index Indexed<br />Indite Indited<br />Ink Inked<br />Inscribe Inscribed<br />Ironize Ironized<br />Jot down Jotted down<br />Journalize Journalized<br />Justify Justified<br />Keyboard Keyboarded<br />Letter Lettered<br />List Listed<br />Lucubrate lucubrated<br />Lyricize Lyricized<br />Make a note of Made a note of<br />Mark Marked<br />Market Marketed<br />Mythmaker Mythmade<br />Newshawk Newshawked<br />Newshound Newshounded<br />Newsmonger Newsmongered<br />Note Noted<br />Organize Organized<br />Orthograph Orthographed<br />Outline Outlined<br />Pamphleteer Pamphleteered<br />Pamphletize Pamphletized<br />Paragraph Paragraphed/Paragraphist<br />Parodize Parodized (pertaining to parodist)<br />Pen Penned<br />Plan Planned<br />Plot Plotted<br />Poeticize Poeticized<br />Poetize Poetized<br />Potboil Potboiled<br />Prescribe Prescribed<br />Proofread Proofread<br />Publicize Publicized<br />Putting pen to paper Put pen to paper<br />Quill Quilled<br />Record Recorded<br />Record Recorded<br />Register Registered<br />Report Reported<br />Research Researched<br />Review Reviewed<br />Revise Revised<br />Rewrite Rewrote<br />Rhyme Rhymed<br />Satirize Satirized<br />Scandalize Scandalized<br />Scrabble Scrabbled<br />Scratch Scratched<br />Scrawl Scrawled<br />Scribble Scribbled<br />Script Scripted<br />Sell Sold<br />Sing Sang<br />Sling words Slung words<br />State Stated<br />Subscribe Subscribed<br />Trace Traced<br />Transcribe Transcribed<br />Type Typed<br />Versify Versified<br />Videorecord Videorecorded<br />Write down Wrote down<br />Write up Wrote up<br /><br />(For more word possibilities, consult the book that I did for some of this research: The Synonym Finder, J.I. Rodale (over 1 million synonyms), Warner Books, NY.) <br />About the author of this article: Anne Hart has written 90 published paperback books currently in print listed at http://annehart.tripod.com and has taught creative writing since 1972 before retiring in 2004. She currently writes books and magazine articles and is a member of the American Society of Journalists and Authors and Mensa.<br /> #<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9180469173126249540-6893165629356504485?l=how-to-books.blogspot.com'/></div>writeathonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9180469173126249540.post-45606175658809319842009-02-10T13:37:00.000-08:002009-02-10T13:39:48.158-08:00Enjoy!<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9180469173126249540-4560617565880931984?l=how-to-books.blogspot.com'/></div>writeathonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9180469173126249540.post-67310173588216267402008-10-14T18:51:00.000-07:002008-10-14T18:52:15.913-07:00101+ Practical Ways to Raise Funds: A Step-by-Step Guide with Answers<br />By: Anne Hart<br /><br />Table of Contents<br /><br />101+ Practical Ways to Raise Funds<br />A Step-by-Step Guide with Answers<br /><br />Chapters<br /><br />1. How to Write and Develop Scripts for Computer and Board Games<br /><br />2. Designing Success Story Newsletters as Anniversary or Event and<br />Celebration of Life Gift Books<br /><br />3. How to Bind Your Own Current Events Research Book or Booklet by<br />Hand<br /><br />4. Pop-Up Books for All Ages<br /><br />5. Full 5 – 6 Week Course in Writing and Publishing Gift Books<br /><br />6. 50 Strategies on How to Apply Writing to Memoirs and Life Story<br />Gift Books or Newsletters<br /><br />7. Personal Histories & Autobiographies as Points of View within<br />Social Histories:<br /><br />Write in the First Person<br /><br />8. Personal History Time Capsules as Gift Books, Annual Newsletters<br />and DNA<br /><br />Driven Genealogy Reports<br /><br />9. Romantic Wedding and Anniversary Gift Books, DVDs or Newsletters<br /><br />10. Newsletters or DVDs with Slogans, Logos, and<br />Branding<br /><br />11. Directories and DVDs as Gift Books: Entertainment, Walking Tour<br />Guides,<br /><br />Historic Neighborhoods, Galleries, Museums, and Dining<br /><br />12. Gift Books, Discs, and Newsletters Documenting Media Tours for<br />Authors, Performers, and Speakers<br /><br />13. News Clipping Collection on a "Theme Newsletter," Report, Disc,<br />or Niche Market Gift Book<br /><br />14. Age-Related Hubs as Family History Newsletters, DVDs, Reports,<br />and Gift<br /><br />Books<br /><br />15. Conference or Reunion Newsletters, Discs, and Gift Books<br /><br />16. Digital Scrap Booking, Newsletters, DVDs, and Gift Books from<br />Slide Shows<br /><br />17. Dating History Newsletters, DVDs, and Gift Books<br /><br />18. Celebrities' "Lessons Learned from Life" as Newsletters, Discs,<br />Reports, or Books<br /><br />19. Mind-Body-Spirit Gift Video Newsletters, Reports, and Gift Books<br /><br />20. Inspirational Video and Print Newsletters, CDs, DVDs, or Gift<br />Books<br /><br />21. Self-Help Seminar and Convention Newsletters, Discs, Reports, or<br />Year Books<br /><br />22. How to Make Great Video Extended Family Newsletters<br /><br />23. How to Write a Course Syllabus<br /><br />24. Publishing or Producing Materials for Reunions and Video<br />Conferences<br /><br />25. Writing, Publishing, and Producing Video News Releases<br /><br />Appendix A Newsletter Templates on the Web<br /><br />Appendix B Multi-Ethnic Genealogy Web Sites<br /><br />Appendix C General Genealogy Web sites<br /><br />Appendix D Bibliography<br /><br />Appendix E Use Haiku as Proverbs and Slogans for Inspiration<br /><br />Appendix F 1,006 Action Verbs for Gift Book Writers and Publishers<br /><br />Appendix G Template for a Handwritten Newsletter—Print or<br />Multimedia<br /><br />Appendix H Expressive Arts in Creativity Research: Projects and<br />Assessments in<br /><br />Imaginative Writing<br /><br />Appendix I List of Anne Hart's 83+ published paperback books in<br />print<br /><br />Index<br /><br />***<br /><br />Introduction<br /><br />"The best way to become acquainted with a subject is to write a book<br />about it." __ Benjamin Disraeli (1804 - 1881)<br /><br />Benjamin Disraeli, novelist, debator, and prime minister in England<br />(elected to parliament), wrote many novels, including a<br />trilogy "Coningsby," "Sybil," and "Tancred." and The Life and Reign<br />of Charles I (1828). A nearly three-page listing of Disraeli's<br />quotations appear in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations.<br /><br />Cheers to Simplicity<br /><br />Do you want to raise funds or solve problems for your<br />favorite cause by writing, publishing, or producing? Simplicity<br />sells. About keeping things simple, clear, and consistent, that's the<br />first thing I learned when I went to technical writing school to<br />learn to write computer manuals two decades ago after I tried to get<br />a real-world teaching job with a masters degree in creative writing--<br />fiction. We used to wear buttons saying "clarify and simplify." It<br />prevents logorrhea. It sure helped when I entered the field of<br />medical writing.<br /><br />The following five details helped to sell my fiction (23 novels):<br />simplicity, commitment, consistency, universal values, and clarity.<br />If you write fiction, you write about what keeps families together,<br />puts bread on the table, and pulls its own weight. You write about<br />searching or brainstorming for answers, surprises, measurable<br />results, imagination, and solutions to problems close by instead of<br />looking for creativity enhancement, success, or the unexpected in all<br />those far away or exotic places. And yes, that illustrates simplicity<br />without talking down to the readers. Make the reader feel important.<br />Who does it best?<br /><br />It's the people that write user-friendly books. The skills you learn<br />by writing computer manuals transfers to writing novels when people<br />can follow the simplicity and still feel good after reading your<br />book. Hooray for all writers who emphasize clarity through<br />simplicity. It sells.<br /><br />***<br /><br />102 Fund-Raising "How-To" Career Development, Problem-Solving,<br />Practical Training, or Vocational Biography Pamphlets to Publish<br />Raising funds? How do you do it? Simply interview folks in these<br />occupations and write their brief vocational biographies. You can<br />hire freelance writers to write the biographical interviews<br />emphasizing what they do on their job, education/training, and<br />experience, target market, location, and expected income. Market your<br />publications at career development events and conferences and with<br />school libraries and career, human resources, or employment centers.<br /><br />Your publishing effort can be pamphlets, glossy magazines, books, or<br />loose leaf vocational biographies that you market to schools, career<br />centers, and libraries. Advertise for people to interview that do<br />these types of work as their main form of income or as a part-time<br />business.<br /><br />You can find them in various professional and trade associations<br />related to the industries or occupations. Publishing vocational<br />biographies can be in paperback or as a video news release on the<br />highlights of various vocations. One example could be a day in the<br />life of a book packager. Keep the vocational biography short and<br />focus on the highlights.<br /><br />Pamphlets could run 45-100 pages. Here are some suggested vocations<br />that haven't been covered in depth too many times. You could focus on<br />the 50 vocations that will grow in the next decade or choose<br />vocations such as these below that emphasize hobbies and beyond as<br />vocations such as archivist leading to a possibly more secure job<br />with one's state.<br /><br />1) American Studies Participant/Observer/Reporter<br /><br />2) Adoptions Researcher<br /><br />3) Anthropologist/Applied<br /><br />4) Antiques and Paper Collectibles Dealer in Family<br />History/Postcards/Photos/Diaries<br /><br />5) Archivist/State Employee<br /><br />6) Area Studies Specialist<br /><br />7) Attorney/Notary/Court Records Researcher<br /><br />8) Banking historian<br /><br />9) Biographer<br /><br />10) Book author/article writer/columnist<br /><br />11) Book Locator<br /><br />12) Book Packager<br /><br />13) Braille Transcriber/Genealogy Records<br /><br />14) Career Consultant or Counselor<br /><br />15) Clarifying Secrets in Memoirs Writing/Intergenerational<br />Writing/Publishing Specialist<br /><br />16) Clergy<br /><br />17) Collectibles Dealer<br /><br />18) Computer Database Manager/Researcher/Designer<br /><br />19) Conference and Seminar Event Planner<br /><br />20) Conservator<br /><br />21) Court Records Researcher/Historian<br /><br />22) Diary Conservator<br /><br />23) DNA-driven Genealogy Researcher<br /><br />24) Documentarian<br /><br />25) Estate Sales and Auction Directors<br /><br />26) Ethnographer<br /><br />27) Eulogy Writer<br /><br />28) Family Conflicts Mediator<br /><br />29) Family History Gift Basket Entrepreneur<br /><br />30) Family History Internet Theater Producer<br /><br />31) Family Newsletter Publisher/Designer<br /><br />32) Family Recipe Publisher<br /><br />33) Genealogist<br /><br />34) Genealogy Camp Coordinator/Life Story Writing or History<br />Research Camp<br /><br />35) Genealogy Club Events Coordinator<br /><br />36) Genealogy Events and Trade Show Planner<br /><br />37) Genealogy Software Designer<br /><br />38) Genealogy Software Manufacturer's Representative<br /><br />39) Genealogy/Family History Teacher—online or in person<br /><br />40) Genetics Counselor<br /><br />41) Geographic Area Genealogy Researcher<br /><br />42) Gerontologist<br /><br />43) Gift Book or Booklet Publisher/Writer/Designer<br /><br />44) Gift Manufacturer—Family History Novelties, Collectibles,<br />Memorabilia<br /><br />45) Greeting Card Writer/Personalize for Families<br /><br />46) Handwriting and Documents Researcher<br /><br />47) Historian<br /><br />48) Historic Genealogy Society Administrator/Founder/Researcher<br /><br />49) Historical Handwriting Analyst<br /><br />50) Historical Society Coordinator/Founder/Administrator<br /><br />51) Immigrant Ancestor Project Coordinator<br /><br />52) Indexer/Genealogy Books, Records, and Web-based Databases<br /><br />53) Intergenerational Interviewer<br /><br />54) Internships Director for a University<br /><br />55) Intimate Journeys Genealogical Walking Tours of Neighborhoods<br />Connecting Families<br /><br />56) Journalist<br /><br />57) Librarian<br /><br />58) Library of Congress Employee<br /><br />59) Linguist/early handwriting specialist/Languages<br /><br />60) Locator of Descendants for Restoring and Returning Historic<br />Photos, Ephemera, and Memorabilia (found in antique shops, at estate<br />sales, and displayed in restaurants).<br /><br />61) Matchmaker<br /><br />62) Medical Historian<br /><br />63) Memoirs Writing Educator<br /><br />64) Museum Archivist<br /><br />65) Music/Musician Genealogist<br /><br />66) Native American/Indigenous Peoples History/Genealogy Researcher<br /><br />67) Novelist/Playwright/Memoirs Writer<br /><br />68) Oral Historian<br /><br />69) Paper Sales/Marketing/Manufacturing (for conservation and<br />library or museum uses)<br /><br />70) Personal Historian<br /><br />71) Personalized Family History Greeting Card Design, Poems,<br />Illustration<br /><br />72) Photographer<br /><br />73) Probate, Wills, and Estate Paralegal or Attorney<br /><br />74) Progenealogist<br /><br />75) Public Historian<br /><br />76) Public Servant/Government Employee<br /><br />77) Public Speaker<br /><br />78) Publicist/Public Relations Director<br /><br />79) Publisher<br /><br />80) Rabbinical Dynasty Genealogist<br /><br />81) Radio or TV Genealogy Talk Show Host<br /><br />82) Real Estate Historian (world-wide historical property ownership<br />research)<br /><br />83) Records Administrator<br /><br />84) Reunions Planner<br /><br />85) Sales/Genealogy Products/Marketing Manager<br /><br />86) Satellite/Internet Connections<br /><br />87) Scholarship Researcher/Ethnic, Area, or Surname Scholarships<br /><br />88) Skip Tracer (locate people who moved away)<br /><br />89) Social History Researcher<br /><br />90) Sociologist<br /><br />91) Software Designer/Family History/Genealogy<br /><br />92) Specialist in Finding Women's History-Related Documents (such as<br />maiden names)<br /><br />93) Surname Group Administrator/Researcher<br /><br />94) Teacher/Time Capsules and Social History<br /><br />95) Time Capsules Craft<br /><br />96) Transcriber<br /><br />97) Translator<br /><br />98) Travel Agent: Ethnic and Family Tours Specialist<br /><br />99) Traveling Genealogist<br /><br />100)Two-Line Tombstone Writer<br /><br />101) Videographer<br /><br />102) Walking Tour Guide-Extended Family and Reunion Walking Tours of<br />Ancestors' Neighborhoods around the World or Locally<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9180469173126249540-6731017358821626740?l=how-to-books.blogspot.com'/></div>writeathonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9180469173126249540.post-33139386644151857972008-10-14T18:47:00.000-07:002008-10-14T18:48:10.723-07:0030+ Brain-Exercising Creativity Coach Businesses to Open<br />How to Use Writing, Music, Drama & Art Therapy Techniques for Healing<br /><br />By Anne Hart<br /><br />Excerpt from my paperback book titled: 30+ Brain-Exercising<br />Creativity Coach Businesses to Open: How to Use Writing, Music, Drama<br />& Art Therapy Techniques for Healing. Copyright © 2007 by Anne Hart.<br />ASJA Press imprint, iUniverse, Inc. ISBN: 978-0-595-42710-9. To order<br />book, click on http://www.iuniverse.com. Click on Bookstore. Search<br />book by title.<br /><br />Excerpt from my first chapter:<br /><br />Table of Contents<br /><br />Chapters<br /><br />Introduction<br />1 Preserving Memories, Enhancing Creativity, and Healing by Writing<br />Memoirs-Text, Oral, Visual, Pop-Up Books, and Multimedia<br />2 Creative Writing Therapy Group Fiction Projects to Do<br />3 Creative Fiction Writing Therapy Projects for Playwriting &<br />Scriptwriting<br />4 How to Create Paperback 98-Page Pamphlets on Current Issues in the<br />News for Students/Researchers, Teachers, and Librarians<br />5 Writing, Publishing, and Selling Your Own Small Booklets or<br />Pamphlets<br />6 How to Format Your Book or Booklet Manuscript<br />7 Self Promotion and Plugging Products<br />8 Pre-Selling Your Book with a Web Hub before Publication<br />9 Getting a Strong and Visible Platform<br />10 Writing Drama or Memoirs as Time Capsules for Internet Video<br />Theater or Radio<br />11 Organizing Your Life Story Book as Dramatic Fiction<br />12 Writing and Expressive Arts Coaches as Creativity Motivators<br />13 Write about Peoples' Inner Payoffs and Moral Needs<br />14 Writing Biography and True Story<br />15 How Writing Salable Work is about Selling Solutions<br />16 Does Writing Your Life Story As A Novel Affect Your Memory?<br />17 Writing Life Stories or Current Issues as Romance Novels or<br />Romantic Stories<br />18 Using Odd and Even Chapters in Your Book or Biography<br />19 Music Therapies as Healing and Inspirational Tools in Creative<br />Writing Coaching<br />20 How to Write a Course Syllabus and Teach Online to Market Your<br />Books<br />21 Online Creativity-Enhancing Businesses for Writers as<br />Entrepreneurs to Start Media Tours<br />22 News Monitoring Service<br />23 Music Video Podcasts<br />24 Mind-Body-Spirit Businesses<br />25 Inspirational and Motivational Writing with Music for Relaxation<br />Business<br />26 Creative Writing Preference Assessments as Healing Tools<br />27 Writing Coaches and Creative Writing Therapists are "Tech<br />Support." Take the "Howling Wolf's Scribe" Creative Writing<br />Preference Classifier<br />28 How Slice-of-Life Vignettes, Essays, and Journaling Become Healing<br />Tools<br /><br />Appendix<br /><br />Bibliography<br /><br />Index<br />----------------------------------------------------------------------<br /><br />Chapter 1<br /><br />Preserving Memories, Enhancing Creativity, and Healing by Writing<br />Memoirs-Text, Oral, Visual, Pop-Up Books, and Multimedia<br /><br />"Words, once they are printed, have a life of their own." Carol<br />Burnett (1936 - )<br /><br />The purpose of using multimedia and mood-lifting, inspirational, or<br />meditative background music "to write by" in creative writing therapy<br />as a healing tool is to produce a hand-made, finely bound memoirs or<br />success-story gift book containing a DVD or CD placed in the inside<br />cover of the book in a plastic envelope attached to the cover that<br />enhances the text transcription or rendition of the paperback book.<br /><br />The goal of creative writing therapy for memory enhancement is to<br />show how two or more people bring out the best in one another. It's a<br />time capsule of an individual's life—turning points, significant<br />events, and highlights.<br /><br />What questions will you ask? How would you interview people for the<br />significant moments in their life stories, and then write, publish,<br />and bind by hand exquisitely crafted personal gift books, memoirs, or<br />business success stories? The questions and interviewing techniques<br />in the next chapter will give you a healing tool that you can use for<br />yourself or with others in your work using creative writing therapy<br />to freshen memories by writing multi-media memoirs that emphasize<br />those turning points and events.<br /><br />What's your opinion of creative writing therapy? Some colleges award<br />masters degrees in creative writing therapy, especially<br />bibliotherapy. It combines writing poetry (poetry therapy) fiction,<br />memoirs, journaling, and dramatic writing as part of an expressive<br />therapies masters program for those with a background in creative<br />writing, art, or drama.<br /><br />What's A Creative Writing Therapist?<br /><br />Creative writing therapy differs from bibliotherapy or poetry<br />therapy. Creative writing therapy emphasizes listening to oral or<br />personal history—either one's own or someone else's personal history<br />and then writing from inspiration using facts, significant events,<br />and turning points as highlights of an experience, issue, or life<br />story.<br /><br />Bibliotherapy may focus more on either reading books, articles, or<br />poems and discussing the facts, experiences, or emotions in the<br />written word read. Bibliotherapy may emphasize reading and<br />discussion, whereas creative writing therapy emphasizes expressive<br />writing from behavior, emotions, or logic.<br /><br />Bibliotherapists in the USA have a Federal Title classification for<br />this job description. In 1977, a Federal Title, classification 601,<br />was created for bibliotherapists to be hired. Poetry therapists<br />undertook 440 hours of the study of poetry therapy became eligible<br />for the newly created position, according to the National Association<br />for Poetry Therapy (NAPT). Check out the NAPT's Web site located<br />presently at http://poetrytherapy.org/contact.html<br />or write to:<br /><br />Sheila Dietz, NAPT Administrator<br />525 SW 5th Street, Suite A<br />Des Moines, Iowa 50309-4501<br />Email: info@poetrytherapy.org<br />http://poetrytherapy.org/contact.html<br /><br />The Association publishes a quarterly for Poetry Therapy<br />called the A.P.T. News. It's estimated that thousands of<br />professionals use poetry therapy. The requirements for a "trainee in<br />poetry therapy" include graduation from an accredited college with a<br />degree in the humanities or behavioral sciences.<br /><br />Equivalent credit may be granted for combination of completed<br />college courses and experience in a recognized institution. There<br />should be evidence of concentration in poetry covering the primitive,<br />classical, post-renaissance, modern, and avant-garde writing. The<br />trainee must be accepted into a mental health program as a volunteer<br />or paid employee under professional supervision.<br /><br />As a poetry therapist, you must not exaggerate your own importance in<br />the therapeutic team. Certification allows you to put a C.P.T.<br />(Certified Poetry Therapist) designation after your name. Training<br />programs in poetry therapy and bibliotherapy are offered through the<br />National Association for Poetry Therapy and through other private<br />schools.<br /><br />There are several poetry therapy institutes. The New School for<br />Social Research in New York City offered training programs in poetry<br />therapy and bibliotherapy. One poetry therapist, Don Theye, has a<br />motto: "Observe, absorb, create, share." Check out the book titled: A<br />Seminar on Bibliotherapy: Proceedings by Dr. Franklin M. Berry, a<br />psychology professor. Research bibliotherapy-related books at the<br />Library School, University of Wisconsin, Helen White Hall, 600 N.<br />Park, Madison, WI, 53706. See the ERIC (Educational Research Web<br />Portal) ERIC # ED174226, Seminar on Bibliotherapy. Proceedings of<br />Sessions, June 21-23, 1978 in Madison, Wisconsin. The ERIC Web site<br />is at: <http://eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/Home.portal?<br />_nfpb=true&_pageLabel=RecordDetails&ERICExtSearch_SearchValue_0=ED1742<br />26&ERICExtSearch_SearchType_0=eric_accno&objectId=0900000b8011ce45>.<br /><br />For guidelines to poetry therapy and book lists, write: J.B.<br />Lippincott, Co., East Washington Sq., Philadelphia, PA 19105. Of<br />interest are the pioneer books written in the sixties and seventies,<br />such as Poetry Therapy, by Dr. Jack J. Leedy (1969), and Poetry, the<br />Healer, Dr. Jack J. Leedy (1973). For the current newsletter, click<br />on the association's Web site at:<br />http://poetrytherapy.org/contact.html.<br /><br />Publishing Your Creative Writing Therapy Book<br /><br />Some people pay handsomely for one hand-bound, gilded, and elegant<br />gift book of lifetime or corporate events. You'd be surprised how<br />many people are satisfied to offer up to $10,000 (or more, depending<br />upon the publisher) to have only one copy of a hand-bound hardcover<br />book published about their event or life story.<br /><br />What does it take to create and publish a memoirs gift book<br />commemorating a celebration of life, Bar Mitzvah, confirmation,<br />wedding, or true experience? What quality of personal book do you<br />want to make from scratch—writing, printing, and binding? As far as<br />printing and binding, you can make one finished book at a cost to you<br />of only $1.50-$4.50. What you charge a client depends on what it<br />costs you.<br /><br />If you create and publish a custom gift book, you'd publish only one<br />copy of a hand bound, hardcover book. The tome would contain anywhere<br />from 60 to 100 photos. Text material would be based on phone or live<br />interviews. The interviews usually would run at least two hours or<br />more for one person (and about two hours spent per each interview).<br />The gift book would be about 80 to 120 published pages or slightly<br />more if necessary. Look at yourself as a designer, writer,<br />interviewer, and bookbinder.<br /><br />You can even tailor a pop-up book creation (with the help of input<br />from engineers on how to fold paper). Or learn how to make your own<br />pop-up books. See the Joan Irvine Web site on making pop-up books at:<br />http://www.makersgallery.com/joanirvine/books.html. Also check out<br />the How We Make Pop-Up Books Web site at:<br />http://www.hawcockbooks.co.uk/how.php.<br /><br />What questions do you ask to help people respond calmly and openly at<br />an interview? Start with "What do you enjoy the most about this<br />particular time of life? What do you enjoy most about this event?<br />What do you enjoy most about this holiday? What do you enjoy most<br />about this experience? What thought, act, or feeling do you want to<br />emphasize in the gift book?<br /><br />Serious Life Experiences<br /><br />If the person is going to emphasize a war-related or military service<br />event, an ordeal, medical or survival details, or a factual report of<br />behaviors related to any other serious segment of a life story, you<br />could ask in addition to the details, what have you learned from this<br />experience?<br /><br />How have you transcended the past and moved on? What have you learned<br />from other people's mistakes or choices? What have you learned from<br />your past choices, mistakes, decisions, or alternative solutions and<br />paths? For business case histories, ask your client to relate the<br />details step-by-step so readers can follow how your client arrived at<br />solutions to problems or achieved measurable results. A memoirs book<br />is like a public relations campaign. It's about image built on solid<br />detail and storytelling illustrated by visually-striking photography<br />(photojournalism).<br /><br />Answer the individual's silence or long pauses (to gather thoughts)<br />by using action verbs such as, "Bring me up to date on your life<br />story, a special event, or your work. Tell me about your plans for<br />this book. Also let your client describe experiences in detail and<br />color. Ask interview questions such as the following: "What's your<br />favorite experience and why? Describe a special gift you have given.<br />What have you received that transformed your life? What lessons have<br />you learned from past mistakes? What holiday or event do you enjoy<br />the most?"<br /><br />For further information on using action verbs, see my book titled,<br />801 Action Verbs for Communicators: Position Yourself First with<br />Action Verbs for Journalists, Speakers, Educators, Students, Resume-<br />Writers, Editors & Travelers. ISBN: 0-595-31911-4. Also check out my<br />Web site links at http://www.newswriting.net.<br /><br />The interview questions should be given well ahead of the time of the<br />actual live or telephone interview. Meet with the person by phone<br />and/or in person before you arrange any interviews so you can learn<br />your client's expectations.<br /><br />If your client wants to exceed the maximum number of words allowed,<br />that client would be charged usually a dollar for each extra word<br />included in the book above the maximum words allowed. (It varies with<br />different publishers, of course.)<br /><br />There could be only a half-hour interview of each person when 100 or<br />more people have to be interviewed. Or such a valuable, well-crafted<br />book may be customized to fit an individual's special requirements.<br />Yes, people do very happily pay this much for having a gift book<br />crafted on them or their theme, and businesses doing this are doing<br />wonderfully well finding clients.<br /><br />You can publish all by yourself at a price only you will determine as<br />you research the markets for gift books. You have a lot of choices<br />varying from print-on-demand software to handcrafted bindings.<br />You can hire a team of interviewers, writers, and publishers or put<br />to learning volunteer help from school projects and senior centers.<br />The outcome is all the same: recording, organizing, and publishing<br />peoples' true life stories or other events. And you can pay for books<br />that can be bound a whole variety of ways.<br /><br />Act alone or work with a team of hired skilled people, volunteers<br />active in retirement, or students learning the publishing business.<br />However you manage your craft, every life story is worth a book. You<br />can open a business or enjoy a hobby publishing gift books.<br /><br />How Age-Wise Writers & Graphic Designers Can Create Pop-Up Memoirs<br />Gift Books as Time Capsules or Multimedia Writing, Art & Music Therapy<br /><br />Graphic designers and illustrators that also like to write can design<br />pop-up family newsletters, gift books, or time capsules as keepsakes.<br />You can start a business creating pop-up books for any age group and<br />digitize the book to a Web site, CD, DVD, or create it hands-on in<br />three dimensions as a paper hardcopy, or an electronic gift booklet.<br />If you need a workout session for your brain, try making pop up books<br />as gifts. It's like paper folding. You can teach senior citizens how<br />to make life story memoirs gift books and/or record with camcorder<br />and save on a DVD life story skits, plays, and pop-up books.<br /><br />Here's how to make hands-on paper pop up books. It's like origami,<br />and great for helping your memory and mind stay younger. When the<br />book is done, you can use software such as PhotoShop to scan your<br />project to a Web site or disc.<br /><br />That way the pop-up book can be sent around the world electronically<br />or sold through the mail or in gift shops as a hands-on paper book<br />full of surprises, humor, or as a family history newsletter. To<br />animate your book, use your favorite animation software for Web<br />sites.<br /><br />For the paper copy, it's a right-hemisphere exercise in origami<br />recommended as a balancing exercise for writers who like to<br />illustrate for graphic design projects that showcase writing.<br /><br />Pop-up books can be made for grown-ups, using color copies of almost<br />any item produced on heavy paper of photographs or other art.<br />Pop-ups for children also can include greeting cards to promote other<br />children's books or pop-ups in your story book can be rotating disks<br />or leaves set in the center of the book. Three-dimensional folded<br />paper glued into a book present the element of surprise. Make pop-up<br />keepsake albums or gift memoirs books.<br /><br />Ideas for pop-ups include baby and wedding photos or miniature awards<br />and diplomas. Learn what questions to ask and how to interview people<br />for the significant moments in their life stories, and then write,<br />publish, and bind by hand exquisitely-crafted personal gift books.<br />When you craft a book entirely by hand and bind it in fine materials<br />also by hand, being careful to use acid-free paper, you might also<br />wish to illustrate the book yourself.<br /><br />Let's propose you're writing a children's pop-up book about a child<br />who is a relative. You're going to bind the book yourself, taking<br />lessons from the many courses in hand book-binding already on the<br />Internet. Here's how to illustrate the book.<br /><br />If you write a children's book about your child or grandchild, try<br />illustrating your children's book yourself on silk, coarse linen, or<br />percale. You can even use a linen handkerchief or scarf. Frequently<br />your artwork is wrapped around a drum, that is always curved, and<br />illustration board won't wrap around a drum without bending and<br />cracking.<br /><br />If you decide to publish a non-fiction children's book, which<br />will have less chance of losing in competition for entertainment<br />against the best-selling fiction books, focus on a how-to book giving<br />children of middle grades or their parents in picture books,<br />information to read to children or instruction for children in how to<br />build or do something they can't find quickly online or in a library,<br />such as how to build or make something that children cherish.<br /><br />Illustrating on Fabric for Books<br /><br />To illustrate on fabric, mount the fabric on illustration<br />board when you put your final drawing on fabric. Silk is preferred<br />for a final draft. The artwork gets scanned into a computer, but has<br />to roll around on a curved surface, a drum in order to be scanned to<br />make a children's book. That's how most publishers work. If you're<br />having the book privately printed, find out the size of the drum so<br />you can adjust or reduce the fabric before it gets scanned and the<br />size adjusted once more.<br /><br />The top layer of the art that is to be scanned sometimes<br />is "set up" to be peeled off. Take a sheet of illustration board and<br />mount silk on it, or coarse linen. Sometimes illustration board is<br />too stiff when you cover it with fabric, and it won't peel right. So<br />use this method. Get a sheet of Mylar or matte plastic.<br /><br />This is a type of film. Mount very fine white silk with water mixed<br />with acrylic matte medium. Scan it digitally to upload to the Web.<br />For the three-dimensional pop-up book copy or mock-up that is not<br />digitized, the best instruction I recommend is this method that I<br />learned from the writings of the late Barbara Cooney, author and<br />illustrator of more than 100 children's books and winner of the<br />Caldecott medals and the American Book Award.<br /><br />Cooney loved to mount the fine white silk with water and<br />acrylic matte medium and then let it dry. The next step is to take a<br />roller and put on a layer of diluted acrylic gesso. Then let that dry.<br /><br />Sand the surface using very fine garnet paper. Cooney liked<br />to repeat the second and third step until two to four layers of gesso<br />were built up. What you want to get is a flexible fabric full of your<br />illustration. Cooney described the result as an "egg-shell texture."<br />She used titanium white in her acrylic paintings. Your color will be<br />titanium white also.<br /><br />Not many children's book writers know this technique of<br />painted on mounted silk when they illustrate children's books, and<br />publishers will be impressed with the professional technique, but in<br />case no publisher can be found, you have an illustration for your<br />children's book that will wrap around that drum, curving without<br />cracking. Keep on writing and illustrating.<br /><br />If color is too expensive for your budget, stick to black and<br />white, and let the children color your book as they read or are read<br />to from the text. Keep the text about one paragraph per page for a<br />preschool book that will be read to children, and increase text for<br />older children or illustrated gift books. When you make only one or<br />two copies of a book that is entirely hand-made, you can do<br />everything yourself or bring your materials to a printer.<br /><br />To make more copies, scan into your personal computer each step of<br />your book. Scan photos and art work at least at 300 dpi and large<br />enough, at least 6 by 9 inches. Save text documents, for example as a<br />Microsoft Word document. (Or use the equivalent in any other software<br />word processing application.) Text size usually is letter size, which<br />is 8 ½ by 11 inches. That way you can save your book to a CD or DVD<br />with one file for photos and another for text.<br /><br />Additionally, you can save a copy of your entire book in another<br />file, organized with the text and photos interspersed the way you<br />want to lay out the entire manuscript. The CD or DVD can be brought<br />to most printers for additional copies of the book. Bind the book in<br />exquisite materials by hand using paper and covers that resist acid<br />and oxidation when the book is handed to the next generation.<br />Personal gift books also can be pop-up books for children or grown-<br />ups using themes of significant events and experiences that are meant<br />to me remembered and discussed.<br /><br />Concrete Pop-Up Books<br /><br />There are two kinds of pop-up books, concrete paper and glue<br />that you can fold with your hands and abstract pop-up shapes saved in<br />a computer file or on a disc. Let's begin with making a simple<br />concrete pop-up that is glued into a book. When the book is opened to<br />a particular page, the folded paper opens suddenly as if it is on<br />springs. A pop-up inserted in a memoirs gift book can be made from a<br />paper-cut illustration or drawing.<br /><br />Supplies Needed for Simple Paper Pop-Ups<br /><br />You'll need a template for scoring and cutting. You can make<br />a template by scoring art work. Or have a printer make the template<br />for you. If your printer isn't able to make a template, ask your<br />local university to recommend an engineering or art student who has<br />studied three dimensional art, origami, or making pop-ups.<br />A template may be made from a photograph that is reduced to the size<br />you want and copied on a color copier. The following are the items to<br />be assembled before beginning.<br /><br />Template<br />Water colors or colorful inks<br />White glue that dries transparent<br />Paper clips<br />Straight edge or ruler<br /><br />After you've made your illustration or had a photo color-<br />copied to heavy paper, use the round edge of a paper clip to score<br />little broken dots or lines so that the paper will fold along those<br />lines you have scored. Don't cut the scored lines. Only cut the solid<br />lines.<br /><br />Templates are labeled with letters of the alphabet such as A, B, C,<br />and D. Usually templates follow a pattern such as beginning with A,<br />which is scored and folded back. Then you fold along the dotted<br />scored lines but not the solid lines. You'd follow through folding<br />scored sides C and D forward. Then you'd glue the back side of the<br />first panel to the back side of the second panel.<br /><br />The panels would be numbered in linear order such as panel 1 and<br />panel 2. You'd follow step-by-step in the order of the numbers or<br />letters. Then you'd repeat for panels 3 and 4. So you'd begin<br />logically with number 1 and end with number 4. You'd start with<br />scored side A and end with scored side D. The folds would add up to a<br />four-sided square. If you had a picture that folded into a pop-up<br />with more or less sides, such as a triangle or an odd shape, you'd<br />follow the numbers on your template.<br /><br />Before you start to make a pop-up, the first step would be to create<br />a template that you could score. The folds would be made on the<br />scored lines and not on the solid lines. Your last step would be to<br />glue your shape to the V fold so that your pop-up takes the shape you<br />want before you glue it into your memoirs book as a centerfold pop-up<br />or in some other spot. Before you begin, look at some instructional<br />books on making pop-ups. They're on the Web.<br /><br />A pop-up photo of a couple dressed as bride and groom works well. The<br />photo would be brought to a color copier and printed out on the type<br />of paper that makes the best pop-ups. A history and virtual tour of<br />pop-up books is at the University of North Texas Web site:<br />http://www.library.unt.edu/rarebooks/exhibits/popup2/introduction.htm.<br />Some pop-up books in the past contained revolving discs<br />called `volvelles.' You don't have to use photos. You can use art or<br />memorabilia to pop up, if the type of paper is suitable.<br /><br />Use "turn up" or "lift the flap" mechanisms as pop-ups in your gift<br />book. The same pop-up copied can also be put in greeting cards to<br />promote your book. Separate leaves of paper cut to different sizes.<br />Each leaf would contain different information. The leaves can be<br />hinged together and attached to a page. This works great with<br />memorabilia.<br /><br />The reader would be able to unfold multiple depths of a picture, such<br />as a photo cut-out wearing different costumes or clothing styles.<br />Examples would be the bridal gown, dressed for travel, at the beach,<br />or in ethnic traditional clothing.<br /><br />Until the early 19th century, movable books were created for adults,<br />and not for children. One example would be learning anatomy at school<br />from different leaves showing bones or muscles. For further<br />information, see the following books:<br /><br />Haining, Peter. Movable Books: An Illustrated History. London: New<br />English Library, 1979.<br />Koskelin, Susan. "The Evolution of Movable Books from the Late<br />Thirteenth Century to the Late Twentieth." Graduate school paper, U<br />of North Texas, 1996.<br />Lindberg, Sten G. "Mobiles in Books: Volvelles, Inserts, Pyramids,<br />Divinations, and Children's Games." Trans. Willian S. Mitchell. The<br />Private Library 3rd series 2.2 (1979) : 49-82.<br />Montanaro, Ann R. Pop-up and Movable Books: A Bibliography. Metuchen,<br />N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1993.<br />What's the Best Way to Learn How to Make Pop-Up Books and Greeting<br />Cards?<br /><br />Buy several pop-up books and make a list of how these books are<br />placed together. Then take them apart. An excellent book for<br />beginners is titled, The Elements of Pop-Up: A Pop-Up Book for<br />Aspiring Paper Engineers, by David A. Carter and James Diaz (Little<br />Simon, an imprint of Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing Div. NY<br />1999).<br /><br />Use your camcorder to record yourself taking the book apart. It will<br />be easier to put them back together when you have a visual recording<br />of what the book looked like before and during each step of the way<br />as the book is taken apart. Making simple pop-ups for books and<br />greeting cards is easy to learn and helps develop the use of the<br />right hemisphere of your brain through practice.<br /><br />Make a template or buy templates to make pop-up books from craft,<br />hobby, and book-binding supplies do-it-yourself stores. Several good<br />book binding supplies stores are online. Search your Internet engine,<br />for example Google at http://www.google.com with the key words "book<br />binding supplies."<br /><br />A professor of bookbinding at the Escola d'Arts i Oficis in Barcelona<br />wrote an excellent how-to book titled, The Complete Book of<br />Bookbinding by Josep Cambras. The book provides precise, systematic<br />techniques with plenty of excellent illustrations. Other books<br />include the following:<br /><br />• Hand Bookbinding: A Manual of Instruction by Aldren A. Watson<br />• The Craft of Bookbinding by Manly Banister<br />• More Making Books by Hand: Exploring Miniature Books,<br />Alternative Structures, and Found Objects by Peter Thomas<br />• The British Library Guide to Bookbinding: History and<br />Techniques (British Library Guides) by P. J. M. Marks<br />• Book Arts: Beautiful Bindings for Handmade Books by Mary Kaye<br />Seckler<br /><br />What's complicated about crafting pop-up books is making gift books<br />with moving parts. To learn how to do that, you need to talk to a<br />paper engineer or paper folding specialist. Or take a course in<br />making pop-up books with moving parts.<br /><br />One excellent specialist in this field is paper engineer, Robert<br />Sabuda. See his Web site at: http://www.robertsabuda.com/. Click on<br />How to Make Pop-Ups at: http://www.robertsabuda.com/popupbib.html.<br />Pop-Up Tutorials Online and Books on Making Pop-Ups<br />Web-based step-by-step instruction, workshop information, and a<br />bibliography on making pop-up books are at the pop-up books author,<br />Joan Irving's site at: http://www.dreamscape.com/pdverhey/.<br /><br />Also other excellent bibliographies on making pop-up books include<br />the following: Johnson, Paul. Pop-up Paper Engineering. Cross-<br />curricular Activities in Design Technology, English and Art. The<br />Falmer Press, 1992.<br /><br />Beginners may enjoy the following books: Aotsu, Yoku.<br />How to Make Pop-up Pictures! Dai-Nippon, 1993; Campbell, Jeanette R.<br />Pop-up Animals and More! Evan-Moor, 1989; Valenta, Barbara. Pop-O-<br />Mania. Dial Books. 1997.<br /><br />Abstract Pop-Up Books<br /><br />Play with Digital Pop-Up Cubes before You Fold Paper Pop-Ups<br /><br />For digital pop-ups, try a pop-up cube that will appear on<br />your computer as you create stories that give the reader a choice to<br />move in several directions. This interactive choice is called writing<br />in branching narratives.<br /><br />Picture a cube or a pop-up book that snaps into three dimensions by<br />extending the lines along the corner. Three-dimensional writing is in<br />circular time with branching narratives ending in leaf nodes like the<br />curving tree of life. Think of your story as a stack of cards—a<br />metaphor used by many authoring tools.<br /><br />1. Take a deck of blank cards and divide it into thirds—one for<br />each part of your story. On each card, write a different beginning,<br />middle, or ending for each part of the story.<br />2. Shuffle the each pile of cards so the reader can choose<br />multiple pathways to interact within the story. Instead of linear<br />time, you now have a three-dimensional parallel structure that goes<br />back and forth like a time-travel novel.<br />3. Let the reader choose a different path, or return to the<br />beginning to start a different story.<br />The most important rule to remember when designing an interactive<br />story is that there are no rules. Start with a diagram and define the<br />widest categories. Then, refine the story diagram, getting more<br />specific as you go deeper into each story level.<br />Interactive writing uses metaphorical thinking to stimulate creative<br />response. The interactive writer becomes a master of flexibility and<br />a weaver of ideas, pictures, and sounds.<br /><br />Practice Making Pop-Ups on Your Computer<br /><br />Have a charming photo of a person in the book actually pop out in the<br />middle of the book or at a spot where that person's most important<br />experience is mentioned. Before you design and cut out any folding<br />pop-up art on paper, first make a verbal rather than a visual mock<br />pop-up in your computer. A verbal pop-up is abstract. It's all about<br />writing one page in three dimensions. You have to think in three<br />dimensions.<br /><br />Your topic is "Writers wear many hats." Write in of branching<br />narratives. People who do this for a living are called non-linear<br />editors.<br /><br />A single script may incorporate several frameworks, including<br />streaming audio narration, animation with voice-over, and montage.<br />Other often-used frameworks—including comedy and drama—can be applied<br />to new media presentations, as well.<br /><br />The frameworks may vary from one category of facts or segment<br />of the story to the next. In a documentary-style biography, you might<br />include simple animation, backlit negatives, artwork, photos, or a<br />narration to bridge the transitions.<br /><br />The completed project should flow like one piece of cloth with no<br />seams or hanging threads—like liquid, visual music. Using a varied<br />selection of frameworks will help keep the attention of the audience<br />and give the writer more options to set up a mighty conclusion. Be<br />sure the frameworks don't overpower the information with too vivid an<br />impact.<br /><br />You want the readers to remember the life story highlights derived<br />from listener. Interactive gift books on computer discs (CDs or DVDs)<br />can be true life stories (or fiction). They use a parallel story<br />structure.<br /><br />Readers can make several choices to change the events leading to<br />different outcomes at different times. You can adapt an event to an<br />interactive experience. This lets the audience enter feedback or<br />gives a choice of how the story moves or ends.<br /><br />Writing in Caricature<br /><br />Writing in caricature is the essence of great dialogue writing. No<br />one did it better than William Shakespeare, who was a master of<br />written dialogue in caricature.<br /><br />As your audience experiences the script during its performance, your<br />writing will leap from two-dimensional text to the three-dimensional<br />world of your audience's imagination. As you write this way, fit your<br />dialogue into imaginary dialogue bubbles above the heads of your<br />characters.<br /><br />Your reading and viewing audiences begin to vibrate with charisma.<br />The goal is to give each character the ability to influence, charm,<br />inspire, motivate, and help the audience feel important.<br /><br />Using Humor<br /><br />The more important you make the audience feel, the better chance<br />humor has of conveying a message of value. You may use carefully<br />chosen humor with serious topics to hold the attention of the<br />audience and to prevent the material from become too dry, abstract,<br />or technical. Humor works well when it reveals pitfalls to be<br />avoided. Your ability to make an audience laugh will increase the<br />marketability of your work.<br /><br /><br />Using Drama<br /><br />Drama is one of the best frameworks to use. To incorporate drama into<br />a non-fiction memoirs gift book, include an experience with subplots<br />framed like those in one of the fiction genres such as romantic<br />comedy, adventure, mystery, or suspense.<br /><br />Ask how the inner mechanisms work. Are facts readily available?<br />Or does the book allow the leading character or narrator to share<br />only one experience as an interlude of inserted drama? Show contrasts<br />in a memoirs book between the frameworks of dramatization, re-<br />enactments, and demonstration. Contrasts are what makes a personal<br />gift book of memoirs `alive' rather than `flat' in tone, texture, and<br />mood.<br /><br />"If you can give your son or daughter only one gift, let it be<br />enthusiasm." __ Bruce Barton<br /><br />Gift Books for Everyone<br />Gift books present memoirs, family history, events, business<br />success stories, and commemorations. Gift books showcase celebrations<br />and rites of passage rituals with `action' photos or other graphics<br />along with text in a coffee-table style book, pamphlet, and/or<br />multimedia disc, usually inserted in an envelope pasted on the inside<br />cover.<br /><br />Besides being more than a glorified scrap book or keepsake<br />album, the memoirs gift book is portable and can be published in a<br />size that easily can be mailed anywhere.<br /><br />The memoirs gift books also can be digitized and placed on discs<br />such as DVDs or CDs, uploaded to Web sites as compressed MP4 files<br />(video podcasts), narrated for a public access or family-only video<br />if you interview the individual, or presented in a variety of formats<br />from paperback or hard cover books and pamphlets to multimedia slide<br />shows and short documentaries.<br /><br />Author, Gore Vidal explained the differences between a<br />memoirs and an autobiography in his memoir titled, Palimpsest. Vidal<br />wrote, "A memoir is how one remembers one's own life, while an<br />autobiography is history, requiring research, dates, facts double-<br />checked."<br /><br />When you write another person's memoir, you'll have to do the type of<br />research that can be fact-checked. Verifiable facts in a memoir are<br />based on the words—either oral or written—from the person you are<br />interviewing to gather life experiences.<br /><br />It is that individual's words that are recorded, edited, and written.<br />You may never find a way to prove the facts. An autobiography<br />includes a lot of material that does not depend solely upon memory.<br /><br />For example, a person you interview might use poetic or colorful<br />words, moods, rhythms, and textures to create an `ambiance' such as<br />this fictional line recalling the economic depression of 1931: "The<br />sunlight shattered tongues of ice on the pond as the bread line wound<br />around the men selling apples in woven baskets."<br /><br />Explore this possible line, "Before I left, a merchant said he'd<br />heard rumors that the village shaman sacrificed a llama to the rain<br />deity and burned its heart as an offering because I visited his<br />village to measure rainfall in the parched the Chilean desert that<br />year."<br /><br />How would you like to show how the basic, fundamental, and universal<br />truths of human experience pull together in patterns, celebrations,<br />commemorations, business success stories, memoirs, family histories,<br />and rites of passage? If you want to start and operate a home-based<br />business online, on phone, or face-to-face writing and publishing<br />memoirs and gift books, here is your step-by-step guide to follow.<br />Get results and solve problems.<br /><br />Help people celebrate significant experiences. Interview,<br />transcribe, organize, edit, write, and publish a personal memoirs or<br />business history book, booklet, or pamphlet. Or include with the book<br />a sleeve containing a CD or DVD disk on the inside back page. That<br />disk would contain the same material as the text portion of the book,<br />but as a narrated audio or video `book.'<br /><br />When children grow, up they'd love to see great grandma on video,<br />hear her voice narrate her own life story's highlights, and discuss<br />the times and scenes from her past. The paperback or hard cover book<br />would contain the same material that easily can be read without<br />technology.<br /><br />Here's how to start. Your first step is to offer potential clients<br />unique, individual, customized books or booklets. The type of books<br />you would write and publish would be memoirs and gift books. To<br />operate your business, you'd need to hire as independent contractors<br />interviewers to interview clients in a variety of cities nationally<br />or around the world.<br /><br />In addition to writing the book, you'd also arrange any photos or<br />other graphics, publish the books, and send finished, bound copies of<br />the book or booklet to your clients. Your client would pay for a<br />fixed number of copies of this book, enough to be both affordable for<br />the client and profitable for you.<br /><br />On the average, you'd write and publish about 25 books per year, with<br />the help of freelance writers or a team of writers working as<br />independent contracts on assignment.<br />The type of book you'd write mainly would emphasize personal stories.<br />They would be personal books that come out of journals and<br />celebrations, life stories, business histories, tributes, and<br />appreciation material. To begin, divide your categories into these<br />main topics:<br /><br />Personal Celebration Books<br /><br />Quincinera (Hispanic 15th birthday party)<br />Start of teenage years<br />End of teenage years<br />Reaching 21<br />Military Service<br />Life stories/memoirs<br />child's memories<br />Pregnancy Diary<br />Travel tips and memorabilia/Travel Guides<br />Bar/Bat Mitzvah Celebrations<br />Ethnic Rites of Passage<br />Confirmations<br />Ordinations<br />War experiences<br />Immigration stories—the journey and life in the new country<br />Bilingual life stories in family's original language with English<br />translation section of same information<br />Moving stories—relocation, new house.<br />Surviving an illness and healing journal<br />Diet success story "How I lost weight and kept it off."<br />Memoirs and photos at various stages of life—how a person changed<br />every seven years<br />High school journal<br />Religious experiences<br />Inspirational journey<br />Motivational testimony<br />Diaries<br />Wills/Testaments<br />Eulogies<br />Childbirth experience/Bringing home baby<br />Adoption stories/open adoptions<br />Leisure life<br />Retirement<br />Selling the large house and moving to smaller quarters<br />Transition to assisted living<br />Volunteer experiences: documenting acts of kindness<br /><br />Relationship Books<br /><br />Anniversaries<br />Adoptive child meets birth parents after decades<br />Dating history gift books<br />Engagements/Betrothals<br />Wedding stories<br />Wedding gifts and favors<br />Couple's life stories together<br />Family histories<br />Genealogies<br />DNA reports linking families<br />Commemorative Occasions<br />Friendships<br />Reunions<br />Divorce journal of details<br />Battered spouse detail and dates of incidents journal<br />Events book<br />Religious conversion explanations to children<br />Partnership unions<br />Pet's journey through Life<br />Dog weddings<br />New pets introduced to older pets in the household<br />Merging of families—man with three children marries woman with three<br />children<br />Extended family histories<br />Friends for 50+ years<br />Several couples buying one vacation home together<br /><br />Gift Books<br /><br />Children's letters<br />Lessons Learned from Life (celebrity interviews)<br />How to Make the Most of What You Have<br />Exercise or dance lessons<br />Scholarship(s) or Fellowships won<br />Haiku poems<br />Report cards from past generations<br />Original designs or writings preserved for future<br />generations/keepsake albums<br />Jokes (original, not copyrighted by anyone else other than your<br />client)<br />Personalized children's books—a story book bearing the name and<br />photos of each child. This can be a universal novelette, novel, or<br />story featuring the child.<br />Travel stories and events with details<br />School year books with a twist—customization and details<br />Valentine's Day for each year for many years or one specific event—<br />first Valentine's day before the wedding.<br />Bridal showers<br />Baby showers<br />Baby naming book or baby naming event<br />Building a house<br />Book of thank you notes for an event, gift, or celebration<br />Pet showers (new dog or cat shower)<br />Bar and Bat Mitzvah<br />Confirmation<br />Baptism<br />Conversion<br />Christmas gatherings over the decades<br />Recipes/cookbooks preserved from generation to generation (original)<br />Hanukah, Passover, Purim, Rosh Hashanah memories and other holiday<br />gatherings<br />Ramadan<br />Holidays of feasting with family book with details gathered over many<br />decades as memoirs of events.<br />Birthdays<br />Weddings<br />Mother's Day<br />Father's Day<br />Children's Day<br />Grandparent's Day<br />Cousins' Books<br />Special Anniversaries<br />New Home/housewarming<br />New Boat/Yacht<br />First Apartment<br />College Graduation<br />Age-related celebrations<br />21st Birthday<br />100th Birthday gift book<br />Cruise memories<br /><br />Bon Voyage<br /><br />Welcoming newcomer books<br />Life stories of uncles and aunts as gifts to nieces and nephews or<br />cousins<br />Novel for children or other age groups and genres<br />Plays or skits and monologues based on real-life stories or memoirs<br />Poems<br />Songs with lyrics<br />Interviews<br />Letters collected<br />Change of Name<br />Passing driver's license exam and getting one's first car<br />Born Again Spiritual Theme<br />Marking each stage of life transition<br />Timeshare stories<br />Room mates/Sharing a household<br /><br />Business Books<br /><br />Grand openings<br /><br />Success stories/case histories media book<br />Switching brands—why customers switched to your product<br />Promotions<br />Elections/Politicians in Office<br />News Clipping Collection on a Theme Gift Book<br />Authors' Media Tours Gift Books<br />Case histories<br />Entertainment/Music/Theatrical<br /><br />Tour Guides/travel tips/restaurant guide<br /><br />Opera<br />Dining and Restaurants for each city<br />Walking Tours/Guided Tours<br />Museums<br />Galleries<br />Outdoor Theme parks<br />Local museums<br />Campgrounds<br />State Fairs<br />National Weeks Celebrating a Theme<br />Mothers Day<br />Children's Day<br />Fathers Day<br />Grandparents Day<br />Clubs/national associations<br />Ethnic Themes<br />Historical neighborhoods/homes<br />Video/Virtual Reality theme parks<br />Volunteers' workbook of thanks and gratitude<br />Professional recognition, for example for dentists and doctors or<br />hospitals<br />Military recognition or Veterans tributes<br />Commemoration or thanks to staff tributes<br /><br />Eulogies<br />Celebration of Life Theme Variations<br />Rites of Passage Rituals or Celebrations<br />Grand Openings<br />Graduations<br />Wedding chapel history/church history<br />Solving problems and getting results case histories<br />Branding<br />Retirement parties and retirement stories, tributes, or histories<br />Corporate roast with jokes and standup comedy routines<br />Appreciation book from clients, customers, employer, or employees<br />`Why' customers switched to your product book of step-by-step details<br />that potential clients follow to solve problems and get results.<br />Professional associations' events<br />Conventions<br />Public speaker's experiences<br />Inventory<br />Political views of family members<br />Campaigning<br />Public Relations<br />Video news releases with similar material in paperback print as text<br />Courses or other instruction, tips, and strategies or techniques (how-<br />to)<br />Employee's suggestions from suggestion box saved for many decades<br />Inventions<br />New license to practice a profession<br />First job<br />Contest or competition winner<br /><br />Sports achievement<br /><br />Award/Hall of Fame/Historical sites/Museums/Galleries<br />Activities after retirement<br />Motivational speakers<br />Instructional/Educational Gift Books<br />Literacy Tools and Photos<br />Restaurant Guides with Price Ranges<br />Fundraising<br />Non-profit agencies work overseas documented<br />Computer camp or drama camp experiences remembered<br />Author's creative salon with book reviews or poetry and photos<br />Writers visiting schools<br />Public Speakers e.g. genealogists/family historians/personal or oral<br />historians<br /><br />Target Market<br /><br />Look for turning points, unique significant events, and<br />highlights. Examples could be rites of passage and grand openings,<br />graduations, or the start or finish of major life events. Journals<br />and diaries may be turned into customized books. The major events<br />would pertain to individuals and businesses, schools and<br />organizations. Any situation that has a measurable life span, rite of<br />passage, celebration or ritual may be turned into a book of memoirs.<br /><br />Clients would ask for a variety of different-sized books or<br />booklets and pamphlets. The length of the book as well as the number<br />of words and pages would differ. The emphasis is on details to share<br />or real-life stories. Each book would be sold as a gift. Customers<br />could order a set number of books.<br /><br />You keep the master copy on disk and backed up in a disk drive or put<br />on a CD or DVD. You can offer the book in print, as a print-on-demand<br />book saved also in your computer and if you want to add voice<br />narration, also as an audio book and/or narrated video using photos,<br />images, video clips, and memorabilia recorded.<br /><br />You could include DNA-driven genealogy reports, maps, graphics, and<br />interpretations in plain language. Back up any files for storage as<br />master copies. Relatives and friends may order additional copies.<br />If your client is of interest in the public arena, the book also<br />could sell as a published work. Make sure the book is copyrighted in<br />your name and that you have all the publishing rights to the work.<br />Your book would be based on interviews with your clients.<br /><br />You would also use video and audio recording your clients and<br />transcribe the recordings as text. Anything rendered into text would<br />be readable when technology evolved to the point that the video and<br />audio records would not be able to be played if they were not<br />constantly transferred from one recording medium to the next<br />evolution of technology recording devices and players.<br />The reason the book is copyrighted by you as a business and not by<br />the client is that you're doing the writing and publishing. The<br />client is being interviewed by phone and recorded in audio and/or<br />video.<br /><br />From this information, you are transcribing the life story or<br />business history. Then you are editing it for grammar and spelling.<br />You are organizing the book so that similar topics are grouped<br />together. Then you are changing the files of what you typed as a<br />document into a PDF file that will be transformed into a print-on-<br />demand book.<br /><br />You are designing the cover that would be given free to the client<br />using either art or photos supplied by the client or your own graphic<br />designs. You can do this yourself or hire a graphic designer to<br />design all your book covers. This artist as an independent contractor<br />would work for a fee per book cover.<br /><br />Or you could ask for art or photos saved at 300 dpi as a `tiff' file,<br />with CMYK color, for example using PhotoShop software. The books<br />could vary in size or stay a basic 6 by 9 inches. Art for the cover<br />would be saved on a CD and mailed to you as a 6 by 9 inch file saved<br />at 300 dpi as a `tiff' file.<br /><br />For all this work, you'd charge a fee that would cover writing,<br />editing, and publishing. Production work includes designing the<br />cover, shipping and handling, and printing on demand several authors'<br />copies. The client would pay for as many copies as the individual<br />ordered.<br /><br />Finally, you'd display the book's cover and marketing information on<br />a Web site for the client or save it to a CD and send to the client<br />so that the client has a copy of the book in paperback, on a CD, and<br />saved as a Web site on a CD. It's up to the client whether to upload<br />information about the book to a personal Web site.<br /><br />You could host the Web site with the book information or<br />catalogue, or the book can be entirely private and sent only to the<br />client to distribute to family and friends or employees. Some books<br />would be private, such as a child's story. Parents wouldn't want<br />their child's name and image outside of the family.<br /><br />Businesses touting success stories and histories may want a book or<br />pamphlet circulated among employees and prospective clients. How the<br />book is presented depends upon the client's needs and preferences.<br /><br />Sharing meaning defines `communication.' What you are doing is<br />bringing to life family histories, life stories, journals, or<br />successful business experiences. Memoirs can be presented in print or<br />as audio and video recordings or all together.<br /><br />For example, present the book in text on acid-free paper, then<br />include a pocket or flap envelope pasted to the inner cover of the<br />book or pamphlet containing a CD or DVD that has a video and/or audio<br />narration with graphics such as photos as memorabilia. This three-way<br />enhancement of a life story or business case history/success story<br />offers reading, viewing, and listening that can extend far into the<br />future for generations.<br /><br />Interviews<br /><br />Your minimum interview time with a client should be at least two<br />hours at a time. One person could be interviewed for just two hours,<br />or more if necessary at different appointments. Each book should<br />contain more than 65 photos and more than 85 pages. Identify each<br />photo with the name, the relationship, the date, location, and story<br />surrounding the photo.<br /><br />Book size can be 6 by 9 inches or larger. A square book also is fine<br />as long as it is at least nine inches in length. Trade book size<br />usually is 6 by 9 inches, and personal books should look similar and<br />professionally crafted, bound, and printed with a clear, colorful<br />cover.<br /><br />You can interview several people for up to 70 or more hours to obtain<br />all the details or as little as two hours to interview one person. If<br />you're charging a high-end fee, the client will want to spend a long<br />time with your interviewers getting the details expressed so that the<br />words and the people say what they mean and mean what they say. The<br />most important piece of paper to have at an interview is the one with<br />the list of questions, including questions built around the answers<br />to prior questions.<br /><br />What the Client Expects for the Fee<br /><br />Each client will pay you a flat fee. The fee is based on what<br />every item will cost you to provide. To that cost you'd add a markup<br />that's enough to earn you a profit, but not so high as to make a book<br />unaffordable by the average consumer. Most books will be unique<br />memoir books marking a special birthday or anniversary or preserving<br />the business history of a corporation or institution such as a<br />school, library, hospital or non-profit agency.<br /><br />Cut the words down to bare bones. Use only what is necessary<br />because each word is precious. Photographs should be clear and<br />showcased as if they were in a digital scrapbook published print on<br />demand as text. The paperback book also can include a multimedia DVD<br />or CD in a sleeve pasted on the inside cover. Make sure the label is<br />colorful on the disk and the sleeve is transparent. Let clients view<br />the art.<br /><br />The reason people hire you to write and publish a memoirs<br />book is to have a keepsake for years into the future and for new<br />generations. The book also is a time capsule and an ageless memory<br />that crystallizes love as a behavior.<br /><br />For business-related memoirs books, you might look for<br />clients commemorating the opening of an institution or medical<br />offices, hospitals, dentists' offices, and non-profit agencies with a<br />cause. A business-related memoirs book of success stories, case<br />histories, and employees work histories consists of interviews that<br />emphasize ways to thank employees, board members, foundations, staff,<br />and volunteers for services.<br /><br />Parents may want a book that showcases their child as a<br />character in a novel or focuses on the child's life story from birth<br />to a certain age such as 13, for example. Genealogists and family<br />historians look for memoirs books that contain life story details of<br />ancestors. Older adults also may want to get important factual<br />information on paper, including medical histories or explanations.<br />Birth mothers may want to send a book to a child put up for adoption<br />explaining why they put the child up for adoption.<br /><br />Parents who have adopted several children might develop a book<br />explaining the adoption stories of each child they have adopted, from<br />what country, city, and any other information as to why they chose<br />that child. Many of your clients will ask for wedding books that<br />reflect the bride, groom, and relatives, ethnic backgrounds, beliefs,<br />or just the bride and groom and each person's interests. Your primary<br />focus in a wedding book is to capture positive memories.<br /><br />Pet owners want their dog or cat's personality as part of the book.<br />Your clients also could be a zoo featuring all types of animals, an<br />equestrian ranch, a racetrack, or any other establishment or family<br />featuring a pet. Good leads for pet owners often are in the media.<br />Check out the various press and public relations clubs, animal food<br />manufacturers, and wholesalers of pet supplies.<br /><br />Couples looking for Valentine's Day presents would enjoy a book that<br />a couple can read together each year on their anniversary or<br />Valentine's Day. Sports enthusiasts also like "hall of fame" type<br />treatment in a book on sports achievements or trophies won. A book<br />showcasing the sports history of a person who plays a lot of sports<br />could emphasize the details of each game along with dates, locations,<br />and events as well as sports statistics.<br /><br />One of the best times to approach a potential client is when a couple<br />becomes betrothed. At the time of engagement, people are bubbly and<br />receptive to interviews. Ask the person what makes that individual<br />most comfortable in an interview, and keep the tape recorder or<br />camcorder out of site. You might try serving decaffeinated tea or<br />herb tea and encourage a relaxed atmosphere.<br /><br />Focus on how each person met and grew fond of one another. Ask each<br />person how he or she fell in love. Include details the couple wants<br />to include in a book that could be read by their future children.<br />This is the type of book that will be shown to wedding guests.<br />Emphasize how many copies should be displayed on various tables for<br />the wedding guests to peruse and discuss.<br /><br />For parents of a young child, that child's memories saved in a book<br />would include asking the child what makes him or her laugh. Include<br />positive dreams and ideas. What does the child think about or do most<br />of the time? Focus on a particular year in the child's life that's<br />most meaningful at the moment. Copies of the book for the<br />grandparents can provide happy memories as the child grows and<br />details of childhood memories are soon forgotten.<br /><br />For a baby or bridal shower, the memoirs book becomes a gift book to<br />be kept on a coffee table. It's a gift that friends give. Interview<br />friends of the bride or pregnant co-worker and have each person say<br />something memorable and positive about the person that can be shown<br />to relatives and other friends.<br /><br />Career history books can emphasize what one did in a long career such<br />as military service. The career history book also can be combined<br />with a retirement and leisure activities book or war stories.<br />Anniversary books are seen as gifts. They mark a special number such<br />as a 10th, 25th, or 50th anniversary. Photos and interviews form the<br />core of anniversary books. Business anniversaries also are part of<br />corporate history books.<br /><br />Collect copies of photos and interview several family members,<br />friends, colleagues, co-workers, and employers. Gather positive<br />comments focusing on details and memories. You could emphasize<br />landmarks in the marriage, travels, or special times together.<br />Also include any events or memories of the couple before their<br />marriage when they first met, their engagement, and life together.<br />Significant turning points that are upbeat would be the primary<br />focus.<br /><br />Family, friends, and the couple would be re-reading the anniversary<br />book at important times in their lives. Keep a video and audio CD or<br />DVD inside the back cover of the book.<br /><br />Have the husband and wife each write and/or read a letter to each<br />other to be read far into the future, even when one member has passed<br />on. The letter can be a love letter marking the most meaningful<br />memories and saying any statement that each person wants to be<br />remembered by.<br /><br />Have each person create a motto that represents that person and/or<br />his or her purpose or intent toward the partner. What would each<br />person want to say to the other to be remembered? An anniversary book<br />is moving. What can each person say to move the other to a new and<br />wonderful state of mind?<br /><br />What Do You Charge?<br /><br />Each person hiring you to write a memoirs book will be paying<br />you to reflect, reminisce, and celebrate shared or personal<br />experiences. Memoir books motivate and inspire captured audiences of<br />relatives and friends to share life story experiences. In the<br />business world, history of a company can also be a family business<br />story. For married couples or life-long partners, a memoirs book<br />emphasizes the positive events that form patterns. The book's purpose<br />is to celebrate a couple's `love.'<br /><br />For individuals writing a memoir, personal reflection is<br />emphasized. With a child's story, the parents want to rekindle the<br />same emotions felt as they watched their child mature. Memory books<br />are gifts.<br /><br />They can showcase an employee's work history and be given by an<br />employer as a retirement present. The outcome is a coffee-table type<br />book that's also an ageless time capsule combining colorful photos<br />and text.<br /><br />With the addition of a DVD or CD in a transparent plastic sleeve<br />pasted on the inside cover of the book, when the reader has finished<br />the text and photos portion, a video and/or audio disk can be played<br />on most DVD and/or CD players or computers that can present a slide<br />show, narrated life story video or audio file. That multimedia<br />portion can emphasize a special event or turning point of an<br />individual or couple's life.<br /><br />Before you set a price, produce one coffee-table memoirs book on<br />yourself or on one of your relatives and keep tabs of the time it<br />takes you. Each person works at a different rate. If you work on the<br />book 8 hours per day, 5 days per week, it will take at least four or<br />five work days or more to complete one book.<br /><br />What would you like to get paid for one forty-hour workweek? How much<br />do your materials cost? Is the book affordable to most of your<br />potential clients? What type of client are you approaching?<br />Have you contacted wedding planners to let them know of your service<br />and fees? What you charge depends on how many pages your client wants<br />a book to be. Will it be a short booklet or pamphlet, or a novel-<br />sized memoirs book?<br /><br />To develop both a money budget and time budget, you need to list all<br />the software and supplies you'll have to buy. How many independent<br />contractors will you retain? What will you pay each person? Can you<br />do all the graphics, writing, and software manipulation to create the<br />book by yourself? Would you limit yourself to one book and one client<br />at a time?<br /><br />Training Required<br /><br />If you're a digital scrap booker, you have most of the<br />skills. The skill you'll need to learn from there is how to turn a<br />PDF file into a print-on-demand paperback book.<br /><br />The companies making the software can guide you to the tutorials.<br />There also are professional associations you can join and learn from<br />the members. Some national associations offer seminars, courses, or<br />conferences.<br /><br />Can you bind the book? If not, how much can you afford to pay a<br />printer to bind your books? Until you've put a book together from<br />scratch, don't approach clients because you'll need sample books to<br />show. Your work of art is actually a print-on-demand paperback book<br />featuring many photos interlaced with text.<br /><br />You'll have to oversee each stage of the process while keeping in<br />constant contact with your client. Each process will have to be<br />approved by your client.<br /><br />It's important to get half payment up front before you begin to<br />interview any client. Setbacks could include the client going away<br />for extended periods of time while you're waiting for approval and<br />permission to move onto the next stage or phase of the interviewing,<br />recording, organizing, editing, revising, and re-writing process<br />before coordination between text and photos is begun. Only then can<br />you move onto the publishing process.<br /><br />When the book is published, your client decides whether to make a<br />video or audio DVD or CD to include in the back of the book to accent<br />the text and photos. This recording process using video clips from<br />the life of the client takes more time and editing.<br /><br />You don't have to offer a video or audio disk along with the book,<br />but it does enhance the book and makes it possible to put the book<br />and multimedia presentation on a disk to send to relatives. Since<br />many people don't like to read from a computer screen or watch a<br />video, the book in text form is necessary for preserving the keepsake<br />album feel of the memory book of text and photos.<br /><br />Before you begin, you can have different budgets for a variety of<br />clients. Some will want the book as a video and/or audio disk<br />included in the paperback print on demand book. Others may only want<br />to pay for a paperback or hard cover book or a smaller pamphlet.<br />Once you've set up a time and money budget, explore with potential<br />clients what each person would most likely want in a coffee-table<br />memoirs book that can be passed around the friends and family at<br />gatherings. A book of this nature also appeals to houses of worship<br />and to public speakers that share inspirational or motivational<br />communication with a variety of audiences or clients.<br /><br />What Items Do You Need to Compile Money and Time Budgets?<br /><br />Before you can determine what to charge your client for a personal<br />memoirs book or business case history success story media kit, you'll<br />need the following basic items to start:<br /><br />1 computer<br />1 printer<br />1 bookbinding machine<br />Telephone<br />Internet service<br />Web site<br />DVD discs<br />CD discs<br />DVD recording device or disk drive<br />DVD playing device<br />Interviewers in various states on call as independent contractors<br />Adobe PhotoShop software<br />Microsoft Word software or equivalent for book manuscript writing,<br />organizing, and editing<br />PDF software that turns Microsoft Word files into PDF files in a book<br />template<br />Printer or printing service that works with digital imaging if you<br />don't have the software yourself.<br />Print-on-demand publishing techniques<br />Scanner for photos<br /><br />Tape recorder and player, digital audio recorder, or CD player…<br />Telephone pickup device for recorder interviews via phone<br />Camcorder for recording videos of life stories…Industrial quality<br />preferred, although a digital high 8 camcorder or DVD camcorder can<br />sometimes produce amateur-type personal history videos good enough in<br />quality and resolution to be sent to numerous TV stations as<br />freelance documentaries or news reporting.<br /><br />FireWire 1394 cable to connect your camcorder to your computer<br />Software and hardware to capture video from your camcorder to your<br />computer hard disk drive and then to save the file as a video on a<br />DVD after editing<br /><br />Software that edits video and audio files on your computer<br />Sound recording software such as Total Recorder<br />Microphone for your camcorder and for your computer<br /><br />Your personal memoirs or business history book service will<br />operate similar to most print-on-demand book publishing companies,<br />but on a smaller scale. A client will pay you to write and publish a<br />memoirs or business history book containing photos and transcribed<br />interviews.<br /><br />The client will send you the photos either saved as a 300 dpi .tiff<br />file on a CD or DVD or the client will email the original photos to<br />you. You'll need 6 by 9 inch photos for the book cover and 3 by 4<br />inch photos for the author's photo.<br /><br />With original photos, you'll have to scan them into your<br />computer and save them at 300 dpi as `tiff' files using the CMYK<br />color setting in PhotoShop. Promptly return original photos to the<br />author. You can have a copy made for yourself to keep with your<br />master file.<br /><br />Give the author a copy of your files pertaining to that author's<br />book. This master file will help the author make copies with other<br />printers if you should move or close the business. Keep a copy for<br />yourself as the author may lose or damage the copy and ask for<br />another.<br /><br />Check out the InstaBook ™ Print on Demand Web site at:<br />http://www.instabook-corporation.com/. There you can find out that it<br />takes 23 steps the old fashioned way to publish a book. InstaBook ®<br />Corporation is the premier supplier of the technology required to<br />design, print and bind a book on demand anywhere on earth.<br /><br />The InstaBook ™ allows you to utilize InstaBook ® Maker III equipment.<br />The problem you need to solve is to figure out your cost of<br />publishing per book. When you have a client who only wants a few<br />books, you need to solve the problem of mass-production versus price.<br />You'd use print on demand publishing.<br /><br />For example, using the InstaBook ® Maker you don't need to print<br />thousands of books to get the benefits of high-volume pricing. Each<br />book you produce using InstaBook® Maker systems will have a cost per<br />unit similar to the costs per unit of a 10,000 run. If you had used<br />the old fashioned method of publishing that you might see in a 1980-<br />style print shop, you would need to print 10,000 copies of a book to<br />get the same price per unit.<br /><br />That's why for clients paying you a flat fee to compile and publish<br />memoirs gift books, print on demand publishing is the way to go. No<br />book actually is printed until someone wants to buy the book. At that<br />time the book is printed and sent within 7-10 days to your client.<br />You charge the client the cost per book that it takes you to print<br />one copy and any charges for shipping and handling, such as the cost<br />of the box the book is packed in.<br /><br />How many other charges do you have besides the labor of interviewing,<br />recording, transcribing, organizing, writing, and editing the book?<br />Make your time and money budgets by listing each step needed in the<br />process to produce a book.<br /><br />Distribution costs and sales of the book are up to your client.<br />You're paid only to produce a few authors' copies for the person<br />ordering a personal memoirs book.<br /><br />If employees of a company are made aware of a book on the business<br />history of a corporation, each employee of that company on a<br />voluntary basis can order the book from you, perhaps from a listing<br />on your client's company's Web site. If you're producing a family<br />history book, each relative and friend can order the book from you<br />directly. You publish the book print on demand and send each copy to<br />whoever orders the book.<br /><br />You don't have to worry about getting into Books in Print, into the<br />big chain bookstores, or about paying a large distributor such as<br />Ingram. After all, you're not publishing a book for distribution<br />other than to your client and his or her family or to a corporation<br />and its employees.<br /><br />Success Stories--Corporate<br /><br />Success storybooks are one branch of the occupation of book packager.<br />You'd put together success stories of a company and create a book<br />targeted to the media. This type of book is called a media book.<br />You'd interview satisfied clients of a company, ask them why they<br />switched from one company's product to another company's product, and<br />then collect success stories for the perusal of select media.<br />Your interview questions would focus on what step-by-step procedure<br />was taken to solve a problem or achieve results.<br /><br />Ask about benefits and advantages. An excellent example of a "media<br />book" is available to the press is titled, Media Guide on Food Safety<br />and Nutrition 2004-2006, published by the International Food<br />Information Council. See the council's Web site at: http://ific.org.<br />Why did they switch? Software is an excellent product to interview<br />satisfied customers about, emphasizing why they changed software and<br />what they liked about it.<br /><br />This success story approach can be done with interviews about many<br />other types of products, from cars to pet food. Choose a product<br />that's individual enough. Some products have different labels or<br />distributors, but all come from the same manufacturer.<br />As a case history manager, you'd collect the success stories from<br />satisfied clients and record interviews by phone. Then you'd write a<br />series of news releases about one and a half pages in length.<br /><br />Each success story would be put into a book to be presented to the<br />press as part of the company's public relations and marketing<br />communications department. The collection of success stories should<br />be consistent in length and presented in book form and/or<br />electronically to select media. It would be up to the public<br />relations director of the particular corporation to select which<br />media would get a copy of the "media book" that you'd publish for a<br />corporation.<br /><br />To drum up business, contact the director of media relations, the<br />marketing communications manager and the public relations director of<br />each corporation that interest you. Then pitch to each corporation<br />that you would like to write a media book for select reporters based<br />on you being allowed to interview satisfied customers on why they<br />switched to a particular company's product.<br /><br />Emphasize details and benefits. Most likely to hire outside<br />publishers and book packagers are new software firms that have public<br />relations departments used to hiring independent contractors. Have<br />some `mock' sample media books published already to show them your<br />work. You may focus on a particular niche such as mall grand openings.<br />You'll need a portfolio of your work as an interviewer, writer, and<br />publisher. Practice with text and imaging software. Then approach<br />potential clients. Have good samples to show.<br /><br />If you need to use hired printers and interviewers, have your team<br />help you create some samples to show of your memoirs books, gift<br />books, or business case history success storybooks. You can work<br />entirely in text and photos or vary your output with video and audio<br />multimedia productions or slide presentations for business meetings<br />and conventions.<br /><br />If you want to publish memoirs books, work with genealogists, family<br />history researchers, wedding or event planners, oral historians,<br />librarians, and publishers. Contact associations related to genealogy<br />or DNA-driven genealogy. Memoirs books can be combined with the<br />design of keepsake albums.<br /><br />You also can branch into digital scrap booking using photo-imaging<br />software and text with other graphics to produce gift books.<br />Emphasize events, celebrations and commemorations for different<br />stages of life, graduations, and rites of passage if you want to work<br />with families or schools and hospitals instead of manufacturers.<br /><br />E-Books (Electronic Gift Books)<br /><br />Electronic book (E-book) readers let you take your favorite<br />books and magazines in digital form, usually saved as PDF files.<br />These types of books are lighter to carry than the average paperback<br />book. Most clients asking you to publish a memoirs book will not want<br />an E-book or electronic book.<br /><br />In addition to a printed paperback or hard cover book, you might want<br />to put an electronic book on a CD or DVD. Then send it along with the<br />book for those who like to read electronic books (E-books) in<br />handheld devices.<br /><br />To create an E-book, all you need to do with your written<br />book that says it's copyrighted in your name with the year, is save<br />it in digital format such as a Microsoft Word document cut and pasted<br />into Microsoft Front Page software (that creates files compatible<br />with Web sites).<br /><br />You then save the document as a Web page. When you've finished<br />creating your Web page in Front Page software or used one of the free<br />Web site services online, you just upload or send your book to the<br />Web page. You can view it there or download it and save it on a disk<br />or in your computer.<br /><br />Use your search engine to find which sites offer free Web<br />space for your book. Also you can contact an e-publisher online that<br />already provides a Web site to showcase the memoirs book. If you use<br />a print on demand publisher, the charge can range from 300 to 700<br />dollars to set up your book.<br /><br />Some publishers also charge you a monthly or annual fee per book just<br />to host it on their Web site or keep it posted with major<br />distributors online. To avoid these types of costs, buy your own<br />print on demand equipment and publish one memoirs book at a time for<br />each client. If you have only a few clients at one time, you'd only<br />have to print a few copies for each client's circle of family and<br />friends.<br /><br />You control how many clients you want to take at one time, like a<br />literary agent or event planner. If you are a wedding planner or<br />genealogist you might want to add a sideline of publishing memoirs<br />books. People who work with older adults also might have an interest<br />in interviewing and presenting life stories in life long learning<br />settings from senior centers to extended studies programs at<br />universities for active people in retirement.<br /><br />Adult continuing education classes and gerontologists as well as<br />family historians may all have an interest in memoirs books. It's not<br />only for older adults, but for new parents documenting a child's<br />growth stages or teenagers marking the taking on of responsibility.<br />All these life stages can be incorporated into such a gift book.<br />E books are read with E-book readers.<br /><br />These are usually free, downloadable software that enables a viewer<br />to read an E-book. Examples of E-book readers that are free and<br />available on the Web include Adobe Reader, which is free and<br />downloadable at:<br />http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html. Microsoft E-<br />book reader is at the Web site:<br />http://www.microsoft.com/reader/default.asp.<br /><br />Many popular and/or best-selling books also may contain formats that<br />can be read by E-book reader software. You can use the free E-book<br />readers online by downloading them or buy professional-type E-book<br />reading software such as eReader Pro for Palm Os. That Web site is<br />at: http://www.ereader.com/products/ereader/pro.<br /><br />Some people use hand-held devices such as Pocket PC to read<br />electronic books. Other people prefer to listen to an audio book<br />instead of reading text on a computer screen or on a hand-held<br />device's small screen.<br /><br />Audio gift books may be narrated and saved as MP3 files so that<br />people can buy the book to download on an iPod or other mobile<br />listening or viewing device. Or the audio book may be saved on a CD<br />or DVD or uploaded to the Web as an audio podcast which is an audio<br />file under compression.<br /><br />The MP3 audio file takes up less bandwidth space online than other<br />types of audio files. There are numerous E-book publishers online,<br />but you can obtain E-book publishing software and circulate your own<br />gift books.<br /><br />The most popular way to market a gift book is to have text and photos<br />that can be handed down to future generations as keepsakes and<br />heirlooms, as if they were scrap books combined with life stories you<br />can read for hours as you thumb through the pictures and the details<br />of the experiences in text as paperback or hardback books. Then slip<br />out a CD or DVD in a book's inside back cover and pop into your DVD<br />player. Suddenly, the life story, wedding, historic site, or other<br />event becomes a `movie.'<br /><br />"Advertisements... contain the only truths to be relied on in a<br />newspaper." __ Thomas Jefferson (1743 - 1826), Letter to Nathaniel<br />Macon, January 12, 1819<br /><br />***<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />101 Uses & Goals of Multimedia Creative Writing Therapy with<br />Background Music: Why Use Creative Writing Therapy?<br /><br />Highly recommended is the excellent handbook titled,<br />Biblio/Poetry Therapy: The Interactive Process: A Handbook, by Arleen<br />McCarty Hynes and Mary Hynes-Berry, North Star Press of St Cloud,<br />Inc., 1994. According to the book, Arleen Hynes,<br />O.S.B., "established the first hospital-based training program in<br />bibliotherapy in 1974 at St. Elizabeths in Washington, DC." (Dr. Mary<br />Hynes-Berry is a professional writer.)<br /><br />The book is excellent for understanding how literature can be used as<br />a healing tool.<br />Now, my own premise is that music therapy also may be added to the<br />background with the use of creative writing therapy and biblio-poetry<br />therapy. In creative writing therapy, I would make full use of the<br />Internet for multimedia—music, visual imagery, and text so that sound<br />and words surround the images, engaging all the senses of virtual<br />reality.<br /><br />For writers to use music and words as healing tools, reading and<br />viewing are done to inspire. Keep files organized and handy on all<br />your resources so that you know where everything is and can bring up<br />instantly what is needed. The following are 101 projects to start<br />using creative writing therapy with music therapy as background<br />inspiration.<br /><br />1. Locate feelings and express feelings in words against a<br />background of music that enhances feelings related to the words.<br />2. Craft a story reflecting foresight, insight, and hindsight.<br />3. Reflect on the meaning of a particular experience or your<br />lifestyle.<br />4. Deepen your understanding of your self-perception.<br />5. Discover new parts of your self and others.<br />6. Celebration of Life reading, ceremony, or celebration.<br />7. Express your feelings and your logic.<br />8. Explore your relationships.<br />9. Understand where you came from and who you are or will be.<br />10. Express connections to a former time.<br />11. Plan the future.<br />12. Put in words what's important to you.<br />13. Use music and multimedia to visualize words for personal<br />growth.<br />14. Create dialogue using two empty chairs.<br />15. Write to achieve closure.<br />16. Put conflict to rest and forgive yourself.<br />17. Create a journal for self-exploration.<br />18. Use music as a healing tool along with words put to the<br />feeling the music creates.<br />19. Choreograph poetry to music.<br />20. Write salable books for any age group based on poems, song<br />lyrics, or significant events.<br />21. Create time capsules on discs, in text, and in multimedia<br />formats. Transcribe recordings of oral history.<br />22. Discuss your publicly allowed military service experiences.<br />23. Teach others all the lessons you've learned from living your<br />life.<br />24. Give travel tips to others about the places you've been to<br />and stayed at.<br />25. Write about how your animals changed your life.<br />26. Discuss what you learned from others about money or your work-<br />life.<br />27. How did you handle challenges?<br />28. Do believe in a life purpose or going with the flow—whever<br />life takes you as you float like flotsam in an eternal ocean of time?<br />29. What would you like from life?<br />30. Write about how you feel about your power of control.<br />31. How did music change your writing?<br />32. What family events do you want to share with others?<br />33. What events most changed your own life?<br />34. Do you have a purpose, goal, or objective?<br />35. What would you like to share with future generations reading<br />your work?<br />36. What would you put into a time capsule?<br />37. When did you first become aware of yourself?<br />38. What would you most like to understand about life?<br />39. Utilize music with Bibliotherapy classes for teaching mature<br />behavior and transcending past choices or mistakes for closure,<br />forgiveness, or simply moving on by resolving problems and getting<br />measurable results to put into a notebook, computer, or time capsule<br />40. Prison Writing Therapy groups, hospital, and institutional<br />settings provide an interactive process of combining reading,<br />writing, and music, even with graphic novels and cartoons<br />41. Writing with Mental Patients for Healing is an interactive<br />process<br />42. Writing for people with disabilities using developmental<br />bibliography<br />43. Writing for the Blind<br />44. Writing for Deaf using Sign Language (note how adjectives are<br />described in sign language)<br />45. Writing for Teachers of Poetry and Fiction<br />46. Music Therapy for Fiction Authors<br />47. Using prose collections from many cultures<br />48. Reading and writing women's life stories<br />49. Writing for survival<br />50. Writing about transforming, transcending, or closure<br />51. Writing to organize activities<br />52. Cleaning and sorting your life's turning points<br />53. Discussing Choices<br />54. Training Bibliotherapists<br />55. Obtaining training in poetry therapy<br />56. Using food writing to teach nutrition therapy<br />57. Discussing classic books moved into present times<br />58. Writing how music therapy is used to inspire fiction writing<br />59. Using writing skills to invent board games<br />60. Volunteering as a writer in institutional settings<br />61. Organizing writing groups in various houses of worship<br />62. Teaching writers how to critique without bringing attention<br />to how smart or right the critic is by finding subjective flaws in<br />other writers' manuscripts—being objective and tactful while being<br />logical<br />63. Treating other writers as you would like to be treated<br />64. Work with the effects of time on manuscripts and people<br />65. Writing about family life turning points<br />66. Write about how parents make the same mistakes their children<br />will<br />67. Write about joy and balancing happiness with nutrition<br />68. Before you write, think of "what would xyz do" and write<br />about that compared to what you would do.<br />69. Write about how to find someone's true character by watching<br />them drive or act toward people who can't promote their careers or<br />income<br />70. Write about how and why you care<br />71. Write about how to be kind when no one is looking<br />72. Create interactive games that use writing skills<br />73. Use metaphors to inspire writing<br />74. Write fiction using active verbs and fewer adjectives<br />75. Plan a meeting or party that's on a bus line so non-drivers<br />who write can attend.<br />76. Every writer has a story to offer that's worth a novel, play,<br />or skit<br />77. Write about how customers treat food servers in restaurants<br />78. Go undercover and write about your minimum-wage temporary jobs<br />79. Write about friends who keep in contact for a lifetime<br />80. Collect the writings that come out of school 50-year reunions<br />for inspiration<br />81. Write about the friends you can trust<br />82. Write about how people drive and how it relates to their<br />character<br />83. Explain how young people each have a voice of resilience and<br />write about what that voice is saying<br />84. Explore the lives of women immigrants and their writings. How<br />does their life stories compare with your own?<br />85. Would you rather write using breadth or depth in your<br />stories, books, or articles?<br />86. What cultures would you focus on to write about the rich<br />literature that shaped your own family's history?<br />87. How would you write about understanding your own mothers and<br />grandmothers?<br />88. What is the way of life you embrace? How would you write<br />about it?<br />89. As a writer, how do you understand the women and men who<br />brought you here?<br />90. Use biographical dictionaries to inspire you to write<br />creatively as a healing tool. What do the biographical dictionaries<br />say about women writers from a wide variety of cultures? How can you<br />use the various biographies in your own writing?<br />91. Explore the voices of female writers and compare them to male<br />writers in different time periods of your choice.<br />92. Form a diverse study group whose aim is to read original<br />works by a group of authors of your choice. Who has translated these<br />authors so you can read them? They can be women, immigrants,<br />teenagers, older adults, or any group at a stage of life or from a<br />particular group.<br />93. Study literature as a powerful political statement before you<br />write biography or fiction.<br />94. Explore women's lifestyles and men's comparative experiences<br />in villages around the world or in one area of your group's focus.<br />95. How did the perceptions of women as writers differ from those<br />of male counterparts?<br />96. Capture the spirit of matriarchal and patriarchal life in any<br />city of your choice at any time.<br />97. Write a time-travel adventure of any length<br />98. How would you begin to find out more about yourself, discover<br />who you are, based on your heritage, genealogy, or from reading<br />writers similar to yourself?<br />99. Illuminate the world of your ancestors, recent or in the<br />distant past by writing and reading their writings of their own life<br />experiences.<br />100. Make your writing accessible to the public by holding press<br />conferences as a writer's or book discussion group. Explore authors'<br />parties with the press invited.<br />101. Work with translators to get the writing of little known<br />authors readable in your own language. Then polish the writing of the<br />translators or learn from them how they polish the writing when one<br />language is translated into another. Make your writing an historical<br />document as well as a literary piece. Your life story has historical<br />value. Use time capsules, archival and/or oral history university<br />libraries, and heirloom keepsakes.<br /><br /><br /> #<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9180469173126249540-3313938664415185797?l=how-to-books.blogspot.com'/></div>writeathonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9180469173126249540.post-23475688733838764872008-08-21T16:55:00.000-07:002008-08-21T16:58:37.670-07:00Using Victorian etiquette techniques, I start my travel conversations with strangers only on topics related to art, architecture, history, food, or music. It breaks the ice immediately. Being a non-driver senior citizen traveling alone, what I like most about starting conversations about a work of art, music, a building, food, or a book allows me to point to the lovely fresco on the wall of a hotel at a conference or convention and remark, "Doesn't that look like Renaissance art?" It works well at conventions to mention something about the hotel decor. When I take short train or bus rides, I can comment on some form of decor or scenery, such as a bridge, river, ocean, or height of tall redwood trees on a tour. <br /><br />Before I go to a place I read up on the landmarks and start a conversation related to the landmarks or landmark history, flora, art, music, or other events in the destination or anything related to trivia, history, and travel lore of the area or environment I'm in, even some history (pleasant). To start off conversations, I carry a little paperback book called The Essential Handbook of Victorian Entertaining or The Essential Handbook of Victorian Etiquette. I follow the instructions on starting a polite conversation that was in fashion in Victorian times from the mid 19th century to the turn of the 20th century. <br /><br />Politeness is ageless. I talk about the famous green tea served in certain places in my destination, mention good places to eat that are reasonable, or ask a question about something in the environment related to art, architecture, history, music, history, or food such as mentioning good places to eat in the destination that I've researched in travel guides before starting my travel. Anything you read mentioned in travel guides may be used to start conversation. I never get into negative subjects, religion, politics, or anything heavy. I talk about art history, musical events, or even the history of those abandoned ghost towns or former mining towns and scenic spots to see, or continue the talk on good places to stay and the type of interior decor--such as all wood or log interiors, spas, or events at the destination. <br /><br />If someone asks what I do, I say I'm retired, but that I still write about music listening as a healing tool for de-stressing and that if one listens to music played at 60 beats per minute on a metronome, one's parasympathetic nervous system relaxes and that calming branch takes over helping to relieve stress so people can unwind after travel. I smile a lot and focus on my basic optimism. My conversation starts off on the nurturing side as a healer in a light, non-threatening way. <br /><br />My goal is to start a conversation with strangers as a "light-worker" in the sense of bringing optimism into the conversation by using talk as a healing tool to inspire, motivate, or relax and make people feel calm and "at home" away from familiar surroundings. That's why I wrote the humorous adventure/travel novel on conversations that's also a suspense novel titled How to Start Engaging Conversations on Women's, Men's, or Family History Studies with Wealthy Strangers."(ASJA Press 2007, ISBN 978-0-595-44407-6) or the same theme time-travel novel set in 150 BCE in ancient Rome called Proper Parenting in Ancient Rome, (ASJA Press 2007) all focused on how to start polite, engaging conversations with strangers. <br /><br />What I use are the books on Victorian etiquette and entertaining that are light weight and I can carry in my tote bag when I travel and sometimes a Thesaurus. When I start conversations with a thesaurus, or "The Quintessential Dictionary," I use these words to start a conversation and break the ice with total strangers. "Gee, did you know that the word quintessential means the most perfect, purest idea?" <br /><br />Then I open my book and mention only three words, no more...."Lambent is an adjective meaning playing gracefully over a surface"...How about that...I wonder whether I can use the adverb 'lambently' as in I lambently play the piano? Or should I use lambency as a noun as in 'my acrylic paintings are lambent and gentle seascapes'?" These ice-breakers always work well to start engaging conversations with strangers in a hotel lobby, a museum, theater, or on a train or bus. <br /><br />So when I see a stranger, I try to make polite conversation that engages and holds interest even on day trip tours for senior citizens as well as when I travel alone. <br />It works great. As the author of 87+ published books, it works better than talking about my research to someone I’ve just met in transit or at a convention or resort. It's far more attention-focusing to say: "Now, I know that word, but what does it mean?" than to ask intrusive questions or gab about my own work. My goal in conversation is to make the other party feel calm and at home in my presence.<br /><br />For further information, see my paperback novel titled, How to Start Engaging Conversations on Women's, Men's, or Family Studies with Wealthy Strangers: A Thriller. By Anne Hart. 402 pages. ISBN: 0-595-44407-5. Published: Apr-2007, ASJA Press, an imprint of iUniverse.inc. The publisher’s Web site is at www.iUniverse.com.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9180469173126249540-2347568873383876487?l=how-to-books.blogspot.com'/></div>writeathonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9180469173126249540.post-56614743429798807112008-07-21T16:19:00.001-07:002008-07-21T17:01:12.946-07:00How would you like to earn perhaps $100,000 annually as a medical or other specialty ghostwriter? Here is the training to help you specialize in regulatory or marketing writing. <br /><br />How would you like to earn perhaps $100,000 annually as a medical or other specialty ghostwriter? You don’t necessarily need a degree in science to earn six figures as a ghostwriter. What you do need is to focus or specialize in one subject or area of expertise. <br /><br />If you choose medical ghostwriting, you’d be writing pharmaceutical reports or informational books about research and clinical trials performed by scientists, physicians, and researchers. You could work with pharmaceutical firms, medical software manufacturers, or for public relations firms or literary agents. <br /><br />You’d be making a lot more than the usual $10,000 a ghostwriter may receive for writing a career development how-to book. Medical ghostwriters can receive up to $20,000 per report. <br /><br />Pharmaceutical and clinical trials reports or medical journal articles often are written by ghostwriters. Ghostwriting medical or other factual information is big business. It’s one way pharmaceutical manufacturers communicate with physicians. <br /><br />If you want to ghostwrite in this field, get paid to investigate information physicians receive about medicines and interview researchers, you can take the roads leading to steadier writing jobs, document management, or run your own business as a medical, business, or celebrity ghostwriter. Here is the training you need to begin if you enjoy journalism with an attitude. <br /><br /><strong>How Much to Charge for Ghostwriting: Excerpt from 101 Ways to Find Six-Figure Medical or Popular Ghostwriting Jobs & Clients. <br /><br />Copyright by Anne Hart, 2006.</strong><br /><br />The two biggest problems ghostwriters contend with is paring down redundancy-repetition in a speech, book, or article and inconsistencies in memoirs and novels and listening with an 'ear' for how the ghostwritten work portrays the 'voice' of resilience (point of view and style) of the non-silent author. You're hired to write and eliminate redundancy. Most ghostwriters are paid to microedit a manuscript. <br /><br />You also must play editor and organize similar topics that have to be grouped together. You must check for indents and other spacing problems such as too many "hard returns" on the keyboard, tab spacing, spelling errors, word usage, and grammar inconsistencies in the notes or recorded voice of a professional or entrepreneur. Other times a ghostwriter is hired to write an entire book, booklet, speech, or article from scratch based on recorded interviews. <br /><br />You're paid to be highly creative and down-to-earth factual, stable and under control. Your writing must be animated, not flat, and you have to satisfy your client's wishes as to how the book sounds to the outside world. You must follow directions and yet be visionary, be charismatic in print, and promote what your client is offering with facts that can be checked for credibility. You represent your client's reputation and career.<br /><br />The client, also called the primary author most likely has an agent and a publisher, but needs a silent co-author-a ghostwriter-whose name will never appear on the book to partner on a book-to-book or project-to-project basis. A literary agent or a celebrity's manager may be the person most likely to ask you to ghostwrite a book. Sometimes, a physician, nutritionist, traveler, executive, entrepreneur, video producer, or any type of scientist may seek out a medical ghostwriter. <br /><br />You may be contacted by someone who has been in the news, or a politician. Usually, though, you'll have to let others know you're a ghostwriter because you'll be invisible. <br /><br />Steady work in ghostwriting usually comes from medical ghostwriting for physicians, pharmaceutical firms, and biomedical scientists. Medical ghostwriters may write articles and advertising copy that appear in medical journals, regulatory articles about clinical trials, or medical marketing and continuing education materials. All kinds of ghostwriters deal with macroediting and microediting issues and need to manage these issues. Microediting is selective editing. It is similar to your writing and editing being examined under a microscope to check for confusing sentences, weak points, flawed arguments, inconsistencies, and bad logic, errors in math, spacing, and correction of tables. <br /><br />In microediting, you need to validate and edit the item showing any changes from start to finish. You'd need to include historical information at micro-level. In order to find the historical information, for example, of a study from start to finish with applications and outcomes, you need to look at periodic surveys. For a great definition of microediting, macroediting, and copy editing, look at the American Medical Writers Association (AMWA) Journal, Volume 15, No. 4, page 19, Fall 2000. It's online at: http://www.amwa.org/default/publications/journal/v15.4/vol.15.no.4.p19.feature.pdf#search=%22macroediting%2C%20definition%22 <br />Macroediting is editing the big picture. <br /><br />Most of what you'll do in general ghostwriting is macroediting. You'd need to check for parallelism. You'd have to make sure various elements are parallel if they belong in the same series. <br /><br />You'd make a list of graphs, figures, or tables. You'd check words for verb tense to make sure there were no inconsistencies or changes, and explain unfamiliar words. Copyediting of biomedical material consists of correcting language, format, and mechanical style to meet publication standards. You'd be required to do "substantive editing" and proofreading of your work at take charge of it by managing the editing process. <br /><br />Most ghostwriters don't only write the life stories of celebrities, corporate case histories and success stories, current events, or the rise and fall of executives and politicians. The majority of ghostwriters write books for health care professionals, scientists, or attorneys. <br /><br />Biomedical ghostwriters use a particular style that makes the text unique to medical information, such as continuing education materials, advertising, or clinical trials and regulatory reports. You can teach yourself the stylistics of editing by reading the work of other medical writers who consistently produce good work.<br /><br />There are principles of editing medial text and books on this subject to read. Start with the American Medical Association's AMA Manual of Style. Look for readability scales and grammar. Analyze medical text books and reports. You can form or join a medical writing critique group. If there's none nearby, create your own online. What you're looking for is to learn how to identify grammar and rhetoric while examining the trends in medical writing related to the standards of what is acceptable.<br /><br />Medical writing has its own standards of what is correct. You need to understand what information you require and locate the sources. Then you should evaluate what information you find by searching medical, business, and government regulatory sources.<br /><br />Medical and pharmaceutical marketing ghostwriters don't necessarily need to have majored in a life science. A sizable number of specialty marketing ghostwriters come from the ranks of English or journalism majors that enroll for a master's degree or certificate in medical writing and ask for an internship as a medical ghostwriter. <br /><br />The fastest way to begin is to open your own ghostwriting business as a freelancer and outsource medical ghostwriters to work for you that already have experience in a specialty. You can run a temporary ghostwriting service hiring those with the experience you don't have to take temporary assignments in regulatory or marketing ghostwriting. You can also learn by practicing the type of writing your clients are doing.<br /><br /><strong>Begin Ghostwriting By Contacting Owners of Public Relations Agencies with Celebrity Clients</strong><br /><br />Start by contacting public relations agency owners who deal mostly with celebrities. They often have requests to write how-to books by the celebrities they represent. With experience, you can move on to writing the memoirs of entertainers or other celebrities in the news. Public relations agencies that publish books with information about celebrities are a good start for beginning ghostwriters trying to break in. The first book assignments you get may be writing how-to books on careers for celebrity clients or other publicists working for a larger agency. The next hurdle is writing the memoirs of celebrities. <br /><br />Ghostwriters may be chosen from a team or pool of writers who specialize in biographies of entertainers or other figures in the news. You may be hired to write speeches, books, booklets, articles, annual business reports, scripts, multimedia presentations, learning materials, news releases, and more for professionals, publishers, and corporate executives. <br /><br />What might you expect to hear as a ghostwriter from the author with whom you are partnered for a project? There are lots of humorous situations you'll find when ghostwriting. <br /><br />Below is an example of a humorous conversational example sent to me as email from one ghostwriter who has asked to be listed as anonymous.<br /><br />Hi Anne!<br /><br />A few horror stories…<br /><br />Me: So in the proposal, you have a chapter called Creative Resilience. Could you tell me something about that?<br /><br />Expert: Well, when we need to be resilient, it's important to get creative.<br />(long pause…)<br /><br />Me: Do you have anything to add to that?<br />Expert: Um, not really.<br /><br />Me: Sooo...this would be more of a sentence than a chapter?<br />Expert: Yeah, I think so.<br /><br />Another funny one…<br /><br />The expert who had her elderly father who she said was "really smart" faxed me his scribbled and cryptic notes on the meaning of life, and asked me if that could be "worked into the book somewhere." When I asked her to give me her thoughts on what he had written (as I couldn't make heads or tails out of it), she had none.<br />Same expert asked one of her friends to write a "corrected" version of a Buddhist-type teaching story I had put in her book at her bequest. You see, the friend knew I got it "wrong" because she'd seen it on CSI or some show like that a few weeks before. (I found 4 versions on the Internet)...<br /><br />Same expert had to write a chapter on a particular subject and asked me to go to the bookstore and see what other people had written so she could get some ideas on what she wanted to say in her book of advice to the masses.<br />Q. Most ghostwriters are invisible. Here's the chance to write about what you enjoy most about ghostwriting. What's the most important lesson you've learned from life as a ghostwriter?<br /><br />1. Don't get involved if there is no time to write it and way too much money involved, even if your cut of the advance is a big one. The pressure of time and a ridiculously large advance will fall on YOU, unfair though it may be. You'll be expected to work miracles overnight.<br /><br />2. If you can't get the expert to give you SPECIFIC ideas that would work as bullet points under each of his chapter ideas in the proposal, it doesn't matter if everyone is over the moon about the proposal. YOU judge the proposal, and YOU find out what the expert's main ideas are. If they're awfully fuzzy, listen to your instincts and say "no."<br /><br />3. Do not do a minute's worth of work until the check to you has cleared. Period. No excuses. It's not your problem that the author's contract with the publisher has been held up, or that the agency can't front you the money for your first payment, and that the author is sooooo strapped for money this month. Let them find someone else to do it, if they can't pay you from the moment you begin work, forget them.<br /><br />4. Be very careful about plagiarism. Experts who are not writers are prone to accidentally plagiarizing from the Internet or from other authors. If it doesn't sound like they wrote it, they probably didn't.<br /><br />5. When the agent and editor say they want you to capture the expert's "voice," they don't mean his actual voice, they mean the voice he would ideally have given what their flap copy has to say about him. Throw in his catchphrases to make it sound like "him," but the actual voice should not sound like how he actually talks or, god forbid, writes.<br /><br />6. Ask the expert why he wants a ghostwriter. If it's being imposed upon him by the publisher and you sense he has airs about being an author, RUN.<br /><br /><strong>Q. How Much Do You Charge?</strong><br /><br />Usually, it's a flat fee. Sometimes, I've done deals where the flat fee is based on a certain number of my hours at my hourly rate, and the author and I work together to estimate the time needed and we communicate when I'm running short or long, and in the end, they pay me according to my actual hours. If I'm short, they may "bank" their hours for use on the next project (this is only for clients who write multiple books with me).<br /><br />I have not yet written speeches or booklets or brochures. Once, I did ghost an article for a book I'd edited. I've never worked with a PR agency. I've ghosted books by professionals and a semi-celebrity.<br /><br />***<br /><br /><strong>How Much to Charge Depends upon What Your Client Will Pay for Visibility </strong><br /><br />You have the choice to charge by a day rate or by the word. Corporate ghostwriting usually offers you a flat fee or hourly amount. If your manuscript goes through several iterations (revisions) before approved by a group, a corporation, or even one person, you'll get more money charging an hourly amount. Be sure to specify in your contract that you'll be paid an hourly amount for each revision of your manuscript.<br /><br />Ghostwriters are outsiders brought into a corporation or nonprofit agency to present favorable images and words. You are either looked upon by a company as an outsider who might make more trouble than you are worth because you haven't been an insider long enough. <br /><br />Or you're looked upon as a connecting bridge. The bridge is there to convince, promote, and represent the company's image, reliability, and credibility to the world. You're there to connect the outside world to what benefits the company offers. Using words and images, you share meaning. You communicate. And you are paid according to the results the company gets from your words. <br /><br /><br /><strong>Ghostwriting White Papers and Annual Reports</strong><br /><br />In a corporate setting you'll be ghostwriting annual reports and "white papers" for an executive, committee, or group. You'll also be ghostwriting articles and perhaps speeches, presentations, or scripts for slide shows and training videos. Articles and white papers usually offer you pay based on a per-word basis. <br /><br />When ghostwriting sales letters, charge by the hour. Direct mail marketing and other types of sales letters may be ghostwritten for advertising agencies and marketing firms. In an advertising agency or marketing corporation, you probably will be paid by the day for ghostwriting. If you're experienced, the current rate is about $500 to $600 per day. At this high-end rate, you'll be coming into an office and working under supervision so your hours can be clocked. <br /><br /><strong>Rates: Ghostwriting Speeches</strong><br /><br />Doing corporate work requires negotiation on contracts. If you know more about the business or product that the managers, you can negotiate on a per-day fee basis. Corporate ghostwriting often requires speech writing. The current rate for experienced corporate speechwriters is about $1,000 per day to write a five-minute speech. <br /><br />At the $1,000 per day rate, make sure there is no fluff, unnecessary, or distracting words in your speech. A five-minute speech must pack in the most important points the corporation wants to make about a product, service, or situation. <br /><br /><strong>How to Evaluate Your Ghostwritten Speech</strong><br /><br />Read your speech aloud and record it. Play it back and listen how it sounds to the ear. Ask several listeners to give you feedback before you cut and revise. What you're looking for is not only effective words but the cadence and rhythm of the speech. Listen to what you write by reading it aloud and playing it back several times. Is it smooth and consistent?<br /><br />Your goal is efficacy. Pare the words to bare bones. Look for impact. Keep sentences short and simple. Use two-sentence paragraphs. Here are 20 pointers to consider before ghostwriting speeches. <br /><br /><strong>Rates: Ghostwriting Corporate Web Pages</strong><br /><br />When writing corporate Web pages, you become a "content writer" charging by the hour. The current rate is about $100 per hour. Rates vary tremendously with the size of the corporation, the geographic location, and your experience. <br /><br />If you work an eight-hour day at $100 an hour, billing $800 a day is expected. Let the managers know what you'll bill for an eight-hour day if the project will take you eight hours. Short word count items such as Web pages, sales letters, news releases, or brief feature articles allow you to invoice your employers by the hour. Most short projects require several revisions and lots of rewriting before they are approved. Of course, rates will change with the passing years. Research what the current rates for freelance and staff medical writers and/or ghostwriters are in your area in the various specialties and niches before you begin.<br /><br />How would you like to earn perhaps $100,000 annually as a medical or other specialty ghostwriter? Here is the training to help you specialize in regulatory or marketing writing. <br /><br />How would you like to earn perhaps $100,000 annually as a medical or other specialty ghostwriter? You don’t necessarily need a degree in science to earn six figures as a ghostwriter. What you do need is to focus or specialize in one subject or area of expertise. <br /><br />If you choose medical ghostwriting, you’d be writing pharmaceutical reports or informational books about research and clinical trials performed by scientists, physicians, and researchers. You could work with pharmaceutical firms, medical software manufacturers, or for public relations firms or literary agents. <br /><br />You’d be making a lot more than the usual $10,000 a ghostwriter may receive for writing a career development how-to book. Medical ghostwriters can receive up to $20,000 per report. Pharmaceutical and clinical trials reports or medical journal articles often are written by ghostwriters. Ghostwriting medical or other factual information is big business. It’s one way pharmaceutical manufacturers communicate with physicians.<br /><br />If you want to ghostwrite in this field, get paid to investigate information physicians receive about medicines and interview researchers, you can take the roads leading to steadier writing jobs, document management, or run your own business as a medical, business, or celebrity ghostwriter. Here is the training you need to begin if you enjoy journalism with an attitude. <br /><br />To learn more about the book titled: 101 WAYS TO FIND SIX-FIGURE MEDICAL OR POPULAR GHOSTWRITING JOBS & CLIENTS, A STEP BY STEP GUIDE, browse the book at the publisher's web site at: http://www.iuniverse.com. There are two types of medical writing or ghostwriting. There's writing of medical trials and/or scientific writing for journals and then there's marketing writing for advertising copy, public relations, media news releases, and sales data about pharmaceuticals, products, services, and medical devices. <br /><br />Whether you choose a career in ghostwriting or writing under your own byline as a medical journalist, when you think of finding a job as a writer, think about what materials you will develop in areas such as medical marketing or science and health writing for popular periodicals, medical economics and business publications, infomercials, newsletters, Web sites, preparing training materials, or writing articles, copy, or abstracts for professional journals. <br /><br /><strong>Browse the Book Before You Buy</strong> on the publisher's site at: <strong>http://www.iuniverse.com/bookstore/book_detail.asp?isbn=0-595-41679-9.</strong> <br /><br />  #<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9180469173126249540-5661474342979880711?l=how-to-books.blogspot.com'/></div>writeathonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9180469173126249540.post-83251130872063389172007-08-29T15:55:00.000-07:002007-08-29T15:57:18.472-07:00Anne Hart’s Biography:<br />Web page: http://annehart.tripod.com<br />Biography: http://annehart.tripod.com/id16.html or http://annehart.tripod.com/id17.html <br />Blog: Creativity Enhancement Fiction Writing Test: http://creativityquestionnaires.blogspot.com/ <br />Tutoring Online in Creative Nonfiction Writing, Personal History, Skits, & Memoirs/Life Stories<br />Books may be purchased online at: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/ <br /><br />AUTHOR'S PROFILE<br /><br />Brief Biography:<br /><br />Anne Hart is a popular novelist, playwright, and independent behavioral science journalist with more than 80 paperback books currently in print. She holds a graduate degree in English/Creative Writing emphasis, and is a member of the American Society of Journalists and Authors (ASJA) and Mensa. She has been writing professionally since 1959. Her Web site is at http://annehart.tripod.com. <br /><br /> <br />Link to List of Books Written by Anne Hart<br /> <br /> <br />Name: Anne Hart<br />Degrees: BS, MA<br /><br />Certification: Community College Teaching Credential:<br /> Lifetime: Language Arts & Literature <br /><br />Memberships: American Society of Journalists and Authors, Mensa<br /> <br />Type of work: Journalism, Public Relations, Writing, Graphic<br /> Design (magazine illustration, book covers, &<br /> digital photography), Communications-<br /> Organizational Communications Management<br /> Courses Online, Personal History Journalism.<br /> Documentary Video Production, Novelist.<br /> Playwright. Genealogy--Nonfiction Writing:<br /> Personal History Books. Videography<br /> Documentaries. Magazine Features.<br /><br />Fields taught: Communications, Fiction Writing, Professional<br /> Writing, Public Relations, Feature Writing,<br /> Play and Skit writing, Humor, Personal History,<br /> Organizational Communications, Journalism,<br /> English, Literature, Humanities, Grammar,<br /> Biography, Video-Biography. Documentary<br /> Production. Full-time independent writing of books, <br /> stories, and articles currently.<br /> <br />Hi! I want you to know that as an author, I care more about readers, viewers, and listeners, than you care what I know. What taught me most about caring was the varied experience as a full-time adult learner myself starting at age 17 in June, 1959. After growing up seaside, I worked my way through college as a full-time editorial assistant and free-lance journalist, attended University at night, and graduated in 1964 with a BS degree in English Education, emphasis on professional writing. <br /> <br />By the summer of 1965, I moved to Washington, DC for two years to work in the Washington arena of journalism, meanwhile taking graduate courses in public relations and communications along with area studies and international relations in graduate school. Washington became a great resource for creative nonfiction.<br /> <br />While in DC, Saturday Review magazine bought my travel piece. Embassy row became my beat when I freelanced for the Washington Evening Star. By 1967, I moved west to continue graduate work in professional and creative writing, taking additional courses in educational technology, graphic design, and video production so I could develop training materials.<br /> <br />Finally, by December 1979, I earned my MA in English/creative writing--all this time working full time or part time while taking courses (or writing full time). During the seventies, I worked as a substitute teacher in community colleges, high schools, and in continuing education centers working with senior citizens who wanted to learn creative writing. Between 1967 and the present I took courses in multimedia production, professional writing specializations, and after 1995, I began teaching online. <br /> <br />During that time, I wrote numerous published books which are currently in print, including novels, plays, and how-to books. As technology evolved, I became involved with digital journalism, teaching online, and anything else I could learn about working on the Internet in digital journalism (content production--new media) and designing Web sites all with a goal of creating new ways to teach creative and professional writing or personal history, especially to mature people interested in life-long learning. In my spare time, I kept on writing how-to books, novels, plays, skits, humor, features, and a variety of articles for numerous magazines, such as Everton's Genealogy Helper (magazine), Family History Plus (online), Family Chronicle, and pet-care magazines. <br /> <br />I spent most years during the seventies writing instructional manuals, video scripts, grant proposals, and business books for various Unified School Districts, County Education Centers, and Community College Districts. This meant teaching creative writing classes or college composition classes for community colleges part time and writing books and articles or columns full time. <br /> <br />Freelance work for a variety of public relations agencies and several corporations' public relations' departments inspired me to open the first Public Relations Agency in my local area back in 1976 that emphasized gerontology-related issues. This resulted in a 492-page book that I wrote and several other books. In the late nineties, I worked online as an acquisitions editor on novels for the publisher, Online Originals, (London) as one of the first few editors to recommend books for publication by reading, reviewing, and recommending them online.<br /> <br />Clients in software manufacturing contracted with me to serve as "case history manager" with a goal of interviewing, writing success stories, and looking for how certain types of software solved unique problems and achieved results. The work included writing magazine articles on how a particular software operating system helped companies in various parts of the world (with step-by-step information readers easily could follow). I email-interviewed judges on remote Pacific islands, and managers of non-profit institutions that work with charities. <br /><br />It was really fun developing and implementing numerous memoirs writing, personal history, oral history, video-biography and time-capsule production or DNA-driven genealogy courses for older adults. When I taught writing the salable life story, students were eager to write vignettes, skits, plays, and monologues. This turned into another book I wrote titled Writing 7-Minute Inspirational Life Experience Vignettes--ISBN 0-595-32237-9).<br /> <br />What really became motivating emphasized training students to go out into the field and conduct oral history interviewing with older adults, creating video-biographies, multimedia life story presentations, writing plays, skits, and time capsules. This led to teaching older adults and other students how to develop time capsules.<br /> <br />Since 1959 I have always had my own freelance writing business that led into taking public relations clients, interviewing, or teaching others how to train and motivate others to express their creativity in new ways and to research how creativity may be encouraged at all ages. I combined writing and public relations with teaching and training beginning in 1972 when I taught drama and playwriting for a local Community College District in classes they held at a university campus. Later, I began adding video production work to the teaching of writing.<br /> <br />By February, 1995 I hooked up to the Internet after taking multimedia courses in developing interactive training materials originally targeted to show writers how to write novels and screenplays, and began to search for work teaching online. Creative and professional writing courses, I surmised, could be taught better online than face-to-face. So I began to offer courses online as soon as the first browser appeared in April of 1995. Popularity with my Web-site based writing courses grew, and eventually I began to teach writing life stories in a series of temporary-by-choice online teaching assignments in professional writing. I also wrote for magazines. <br /> <br />When very positive feedback about my course in writing the salable life story came directly to me from students, another university hired me in 2000, and I taught writing essays--college composition, journalism, and public speaking courses there for my contract, March 2000-June 2001. After that, I taught creative writing at another university during the summer from June 16-July 20 of 2004 and from November 11-December 22 2004. I enjoyed the temporary work teaching short courses online as it allowed me to continue with my full-time career writing books and magazine articles.<br /> <br />I am presently writing books and magazine articles full time and reading materials about organizational communications management. The book I most enjoyed writing is one of instruction on how to write 45-minute one-act plays for all ages. Favorite hobby: visual anthropology with documentary video production.<br /><br />Basically, I've spent the years 1959 to the present either writing full-time 65+ published books currently in print, or the numerous magazine and newspaper articles, columns, features, videos, audios, published plays, scripts, and other materials. At the same time I always taught part-time for a variety of universities and colleges in my specialty which is writing and creativity research. <br /> <br />Being a documentarian really is fun. Writing scripts is another subject that I've practiced and taught for many years. In 1989, I co-wrote the screenplay, "Black Snow Melting" about Alaskan dogs, with a movie producer. I’ve written a published play. And in the mid 1970's, I wrote for a local county educational media center, the video script, "Eric Educational Research" on how to do educational research using that computerized research system at a time when computers were new to educational research. A TV personality narrated that video, which is available to teachers.<br /> <br />Hobbies eventually became my life's work. These included eagerly working with students, producing personal history videos, researching anthropology, Ice-age art, genealogy, ancient history, archaeology, graphic design, and watching travel videos. <br /> <br />Since 1999, as a senior, I've fully retired from teaching and sometimes do part-time online book and article writing at home and view armchair travel videos. I'm a non-driver by choice and travel very little nowadays except by watching my favorite hobby of viewing travel DVDs and visual anthropology TV. Optimisim and joy is the lightness of it all.<br /><br />At home I enjoy the friendship of my happy, loyal yellow Labrador Retriever. One of my latest dog-related topic book is titled, How To Video Record Your Dog's Life Story: Writing, Financing, & Producing Pet Documentaries, Drama, or News, published by ASJA Press (ISBN: 0-595-45798-3). (http://www.iuniverse.com). Another of my recently published books is titled Ethno-Playography. See my list of 81+ books at http://annehart.tripod.com with links to articles, excerpts, and more writing. Email: newswriting@hotmail.com.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9180469173126249540-8325113087206338917?l=how-to-books.blogspot.com'/></div>writeathonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9180469173126249540.post-84436968265579333882007-06-17T23:48:00.000-07:002007-06-17T23:49:11.003-07:00<object width="425" height="350"> <param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/BCmULwWoS3Q"> </param> <embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/BCmULwWoS3Q" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="425" height="350"> </embed> </object><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9180469173126249540-8443696826557933388?l=how-to-books.blogspot.com'/></div>writeathonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9180469173126249540.post-5023474475896042992007-06-01T20:37:00.001-07:002007-06-01T20:37:51.487-07:00Anne Hart’s Web Sites and Blogs<br /> <br />Home Page Web Site<br /><br />http://annehart.tripod.com <br /><br />Articles by Anne Hart<br /><br />http://annehart.tripod.com/id31.html <br /><br />Action Verbs for Communicators |<br /><br />http://annehart.tripod.com/id30.html <br /><br />How to Launch a Genealogy TV Business Online | <br /><br />http://annehart.tripod.com/id29.html <br /><br />List of Published Paperback Books by Anne Hart | <br /><br />http://annehart.tripod.com/id28.html <br /><br />102 Ways to Apply Career Training in Family History/Genealogy | <br /><br />http://annehart.tripod.com/id27.html <br /><br />How to Use Victorian Etiquette to Start Engaging Conversations with Strangers | <br /><br />http://annehart.tripod.com/id26.html <br /><br />How to Start a Genealogy Web-Based Television Show or Specialty TV Station | <br /><br />http://annehart.tripod.com/id25.html <br /><br />How to Start Engaging Conversations |<br /><br />http://annehart.tripod.com/id24.html <br /><br />How to Publish in Womens Studies, Mens Studies, Policy Analysis, & Family History Research |<br /><br />http://annehart.tripod.com/id23.html <br /><br />Why We Never Give Up Our Need for a Perfect Mother |<br /><br />http://annehart.tripod.com/id22.html <br /><br />Hero Cats of WW II Article |<br /><br />http://annehart.tripod.com/id21.html <br /><br />Popular Books by Author | <br /><br />http://annehart.tripod.com/id18.html <br /><br />Novels, Nonfiction, & Articles By Anne Hart | <br /><br />http://annehart.tripod.com/id20.html <br /><br />Links to Browse Books & Cover Photos |<br /><br />http://annehart.tripod.com/id19.html <br /><br />My Biography | <br /><br />http://annehart.tripod.com/id17.html <br /><br />How to Start Genealogy and Personal History Businesses <br /><br />http://annehart.tripod.com/id15.html <br /><br />Brain-Exercising Assessments for Fiction & Biography Writers | <br /><br />http://annehart.tripod.com/id14.html <br /><br />Resources for Genealogists and Journalists to Learn More About Interpreting DNA-Driven Tests | <br /><br />http://annehart.tripod.com/id13.html <br /><br />Interpreting Your DNA-Driven Genealogy Reports | <br /><br />http://annehart.tripod.com/id11.html <br /><br />Hart Family Genealogy Page-Descendant of Deacon Stephen Hart | <br /><br />http://annehart.tripod.com/id12.html <br /><br />Reviews of Software, Books, and Documentary Videos | <br /><br />http://annehart.tripod.com/id8.html <br /><br />Techniques of Tracing Baltic, Balkan, Scandinavian, and Middle Eastern Genealogies | <br /><br />http://annehart.tripod.com/id9.html <br /><br />Where to Browse the Paperback Books | <br /><br />http://annehart.tripod.com/id10.html <br /><br />Personal History/Documentarian Course | <br /><br />http://annehart.tripod.com/id7.html <br /><br />Anne Hart's Biography | <br /><br />http://annehart.tripod.com/id16.html <br /><br />Books Written by Anne Hart | <br /><br />http://annehart.tripod.com/id5.html <br /><br />Cat Heroes | <br /><br />http://annehart.tripod.com/id4.html <br /><br />Chickenization & Kittenization Essays | <br /><br /> http://annehart.tripod.com/id3.html <br /><br />Creating Family Newsletters & Writing a Genealogy Course Syllabus | <br /><br />http://annehart.tripod.com/id2.html <br /><br />Tinting White Hair with Herbs & Spices<br /><br />http://annehart.tripod.com/id1.html <br /><br />Blogs<br /><br />1. Creativity Questionnaires<br /><br />http://creativityquestionnaires.blogspot.com/<br /><br />2. Genealogy TV How-to<br /><br />http://genealogytv.blogspot.com/ <br /><br />3. Reality Check for Authors<br /><br />http://rcfba.blogspot.com/ <br /><br />4. How-to Books Blog<br /><br />http://how-to-books.blogspot.com/<br /><br />5. Excerpts and Reviews<br /><br />http://how-to-books.blogspot.com/2007/05/articles-book-excerpts-reviews-and.html<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9180469173126249540-502347447589604299?l=how-to-books.blogspot.com'/></div>writeathonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9180469173126249540.post-65614808127017756462007-05-18T12:42:00.000-07:002008-07-21T16:59:20.704-07:00Also see: http://annehart.tripod.com. <br /><br /><a class="NavBar" style="TEXT-DECORATION: none" href="http://annehart.tripod.com/index.html">Home</a> <a class="NavBar" href="http://annehart.tripod.com/id29.html">How to Launch a Genealogy TV Business Online</a> <a class="NavBar" href="http://annehart.tripod.com/id28.html">List of Published Paperback Books by Anne Hart</a> <a class="NavBar" href="http://annehart.tripod.com/id27.html">102 Ways to Apply Career Training in Family History/Genealogy</a> <a class="NavBar" href="http://annehart.tripod.com/id26.html">How to Use Victorian Etiquette to Start Engaging Conversations with Strangers</a> <a class="NavBar" href="http://annehart.tripod.com/id25.html">How to Start a Genealogy Web-Based Television Show or Specialty TV Station</a> <a class="NavBar" href="http://annehart.tripod.com/id24.html">How to Start Engaging Conversations</a> <a class="NavBar" href="http://annehart.tripod.com/id23.html">How to Publish in Womens Studies, Mens Studies, Policy Analysis, & Family History Research</a> <a class="NavBar" href="http://annehart.tripod.com/id22.html">Why We Never Give Up Our Need for a Perfect Mother</a> <a class="NavBar" href="http://annehart.tripod.com/id21.html">Hero Cats of WW II Article</a> <a class="NavBar" href="http://annehart.tripod.com/id18.html">Popular Books by Author</a> <a class="NavBar" href="http://annehart.tripod.com/id20.html">Novels, Nonfiction, &amp; Articles By Anne Hart</a> <a class="NavBar" href="http://annehart.tripod.com/id19.html">Links to Browse Books & Cover Photos</a> <a class="NavBar" href="http://annehart.tripod.com/id17.html">My Biography</a> <a class="NavBar" href="http://annehart.tripod.com/id15.html">How to Start Genealogy and Personal History Businesses</a> <a class="NavBar" href="http://annehart.tripod.com/id14.html">Brain-Exercising Assessments for Fiction &amp; Biography Writers</a> <a class="NavBar" href="http://annehart.tripod.com/id13.html">Resources for Genealogists and Journalists to Learn More About Interpreting DNA-Driven Tests</a> <a class="NavBar" href="http://annehart.tripod.com/id11.html">Interpreting Your DNA-Driven Genealogy Reports</a> <a class="NavBar" href="http://annehart.tripod.com/id12.html">Hart Family Genealogy Page-Descendant of Deacon Stephen Hart</a> <a class="NavBar" href="http://annehart.tripod.com/id8.html">Reviews of Software, Books, and Documentary Videos</a> <a class="NavBar" href="http://annehart.tripod.com/id9.html">Techniques of Tracing Baltic, Balkan, Scandinavian, and Middle Eastern Genealogies</a> <a class="NavBar" href="http://annehart.tripod.com/id10.html">Where to Browse the Paperback Books</a> <a class="NavBar" href="http://annehart.tripod.com/id7.html">Personal History/Documentarian Course</a> <a class="NavBar" href="http://annehart.tripod.com/id16.html">Anne Hart's Biography</a> <a class="NavBar" href="http://annehart.tripod.com/id5.html">Books Written by Anne Hart</a> <a class="NavBar" href="http://annehart.tripod.com/id4.html">Cat Heroes</a> <a class="NavBar" href="http://annehart.tripod.com/id3.html">Chickenization & Kittenization Essays</a> <a class="NavBar" href="http://annehart.tripod.com/id2.html">Creating Family Newsletters &amp; Writing a Genealogy Course Syllabus</a> <a class="NavBar" href="http://annehart.tripod.com/id1.html">Tinting White Hair with Herbs & Spices</a><br /><br /><strong>Topics Include: Creative Writing Instructional Materials & Resources<br />Writing &amp; Producing Documentaries<br />Videography-Documentary Production, Family Studies, Adapting Genres, Book Cover Illustration, Articles, & Reviews<br /><br />Reality Check for Book Authors</strong> <br /><br />Your goal as a book author is to expand your platform (visible expertise). That’s one way of building additional audiences once you’ve written a book. Begin by writing a new book proposal emphasizing what is different about your platform (topic of expertise) and what is the fresh news angle regarding your next marketing strategy. Your objective is to convince publishers, editors, agents and your potential readers/viewers that the market for your next book is significantly larger than the audience for your previous book.<br /><br />A book proposal and/or plan details credible, current facts showing how you will reach that expanded audience. Otherwise you’re headed for a downsizing destination. This happens all too frequently with freelancers that depend on sales statistics. Downsizing occurs when the next book you write commands increasingly smaller advances.<br /><br />Compare your present advance to your previous book’s advance. Are your advances growing or shrinking? Publishers have to decide whether your platform expansion and the increase in your audience are worth investing in your book because you’re given a contract and advanced primarily based on whether your book poses the least financial risk to your publisher.<br /><br />As a writer, you are also ‘hired’ when you pose the least financial risk to your publisher. That refers not only to your book’s potential, but whether your commitment is reliable. Will you have the book ready on time? And will you fulfill the details of the contract and provide the quality and quantity of writing the publisher wants that you outlined in your proposal?<br />For your next book, there are alternatives. You can publish with a print-on-demand publisher. You can publish with a smaller publisher who gives a smaller advance or no advance at all. Or you can self-publish and hire a distributor because book stores buy from specific books-in-print catalogues.<br /><br />To make your next book proposal inviting, show with specific details outlined exactly how you intend to increase the sale of your book and why this will work. Publishers link the visibility of your expertise—your platform to markers pointing to logical reasons for higher sales. Publishing is not as subjective as often deemed. It’s all about whether you pose the least financial risk to the publisher as to whether or not your book is ‘hired.’<br />________________________________________________________________________<br /><strong>Most Popular of Author's Books<br />Anne Hart is the author of 86+ published books currently in print and 11 more books out of print since the 1980s and1990s. Recent books now in print also include family history novels and numerous DNA-driven genealogy books. She's a member of the American Association of Journalists and Authors, and Mensa, and holds a graduate degree in English/Creative Writing emphasis. </strong><br /><br /><strong>See her book titled, 102 Ways to Apply Career Training in Family History/Genealogy: How to Find a Job, Internship, or Create Your Own Business. ISBN: </strong><a class="tb" href="http://www.alibris.com/search/search.cfm?S=R&amp;qisbn=0595413161"><strong>0595413161</strong></a><strong>. 2006. ASJA Press, iUniverse, Inc. 1-800 Authors or </strong><a href="http://www.iuniverse.com/"><strong>http://www.iuniverse.com</strong></a><strong>.<br /></strong>________________________________________________________<br /><br />Employment Personality Assessments Book<br /><a href="http://www.newswriting.net/eptd.htm">Employment Personality Tests Decoded. (Book) Click Here.</a> Publisher: Career Press, 2007. <a href="http://www.newswriting.net/eptd.htm">Information/Description of the book titled, Employment Personality Tests Decoded</a> (Paperback) by <a style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial" href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-url/104-8011925-3585543?%5Fencoding=UTF8&amp;search-type=ss&amp;index=books&amp;field-author=Anne%20Hart">Anne Hart</a> (Author) with <a style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial" href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-url/104-8011925-3585543?%5Fencoding=UTF8&amp;search-type=ss&amp;index=books&amp;field-author=George%20Sheldon">George Sheldon</a> ______________________________________________________<br /><a style="COLOR: #003399; FONT-FAMILY: Arial" onclick="return amz_js_PopWin('http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/images/1564149463/sr=1-1/qid=1174335621/ref=dp_image_0/104-8011925-3585543?ie=UTF8&amp;amp;n=283155&amp;amp;s=books&amp;amp;qid=1174335621&amp;amp;sr=1-1','AmazonHelp','width=700,height=600,resizable=1,scrollbars=1,toolbar=0,status=1');" href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/images/1564149463/sr=1-1/qid=1174335621/ref=dp_image_0/104-8011925-3585543?ie=UTF8&amp;amp;n=283155&amp;amp;s=books&amp;amp;qid=1174335621&amp;amp;sr=1-1" target="AmazonHelp"></a><br /><br /><strong>Employment Personality Tests Decoded (Paperback) by </strong><a style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial" href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-url/104-8011925-3585543?%5Fencoding=UTF8&amp;amp;search-type=ss&amp;amp;index=books&amp;amp;field-author=Anne%20Hart"><strong>Anne Hart</strong></a><strong> with </strong><a style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial" href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-url/104-8011925-3585543?%5Fencoding=UTF8&amp;amp;search-type=ss&amp;amp;index=books&amp;amp;field-author=George%20Sheldon"><strong>George Sheldon</strong></a><br /><strong> <br />Editorial Reviews </strong><br /><br /><strong>Book Description</strong><br /><br />At least 30 percent of American companies, from American Express and Bank of America and IBM to Marriott, Procter & Gamble, Time Warner, and a host of smaller firms, subject their employees to one or more personality tests each year.Why do they do it? Employers want to hire and retain employees who are qualified, confident, resilient, even-tempered, and loyal. Personality assessments, like coaches, help them identify potential problems. The corporate world is intense. Employers need to know how their staff will deal with the inevitable pull of priorities between a regimented corporate life and family responsibilities.<br /><br />Under normal conditions--and under stress--how do you deal with conflicts, solve problems, and arrive at results? Will you overlook important details? Find it difficult to interact with your colleagues? Disrupt a team? Threaten your supervisor?Employers care how you make sense of the world because they want you to be reliable-as reliable as the test they're subjecting you to.<br /><br />You will be hired--or retained--because the test shows you will pose the least financial risk to your employer.Can these tests be "beaten"? The short answer is no. But you can certainly learn more about them and, based on that knowledge, have a better idea of the answers each test is looking for.Crack Employment Personality Tests will show you:* Why corporations require tests.* Details of the most popular tests.* How to prepare for each type of test and assess your score.* What good (positive) attitudes employers want to see on personality assessments and profiles.* How to solve problems, get results, and simplify answers for clarity.* Your legal rights when taking corporate personality assessments.* How to ace team-building and leadership assessments, even under stress.<br /><br />With Crack Employment Personality Tests, you'll never again have to worry that you will fail to get the job you want--or keep the job you love-because you couldn't pass the personality test! About the AuthorAnne Hart is a popular California behavioral-science journalist, columnist, scriptwriter, and author of 70 books. She is a member of the American Society of Journalists and Authors and Mensa and holds a graduate degree in English/writing. She has designed dozens of tests and assessments.George Sheldon is a journalist, photographer, author of 22 books, and a member of the American Society of Journalists and Authors. Sheldon writes about business, travel, and history. He is a native of, and still resides in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.<br /><br />Product Details <br />Paperback: 216 pages<br />Publisher: Career Press (July 30, 2007)<br />Language: English<br />ISBN-10: 1564149463<br />ISBN-13: 978-1564149466<br /><a class="thickbox" href="http://books.iuniverse.com/booksfolder/0595449476/0595449476.gif"></a><br /><a class="thickbox" href="http://books.iuniverse.com/booksfolder/0595449476/0595449476.gif">View Larger</a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.iuniverse.com/bookstore/book_detail.asp?isbn=0-595-44947-6">How to Launch a Genealogy TV Business Online: Start Family History/Ancestry Shows Globally </a><br />By <a href="http://www.iuniverse.com/bookstore/author.asp?author_id=72511&amp;penname=Anne++Hart">Anne Hart</a><br />Publisher's price: $21.95 Format: Paperback Size: 6 x 9Pages: 312ISBN: 0-595-44947-6Published: May-2007<br /><br />USA orders: Call 1-800 AUTHORS International orders:Call 00-1-402-323-7800<br /> Or Order the ASJA Press imprint at: <a href="http://www.iuniverse.com/bookstore/book_detail.asp?isbn=0-595-44947-6">http://www.iuniverse.com/bookstore/book_detail.asp?isbn=0-595-44947-6</a><br />Here’s how to start your own ancestry-television business online on a shoestring budget. Learn how to launch family history/genealogy television shows globally on Web sites.<br />Book Description<br /><a href="http://books.iuniverse.com/viewbooks.asp?isbn=0595449476">Browse Before You Buy</a><br /><br />Here’s how to start your own ancestry-television business online on a shoestring budget. Learn how to launch family history/genealogy television shows globally on your Web site, produce videos, and publish hobby materials, publications, books, multimedia, or life stories as a pay-per-view or sponsored free entertainment. Create social history documentaries.<br />Customize vintage maps and family atlases. Give visibility to family history educational entertainment businesses.<br /><br />Supply genealogy tools and videos to followers of the second most popular hobby in the country with more than 113 million people interested in genealogy and related family history topics. Provide or market content and tools to those that want to know more about their ancestor’s roots, migrations, and social history.<br /><br />What news did the papers print in your ancestor’s lifetime? You’ll learn practical, specific steps on how to adapt real life stories into romance novels, skits, plays, monologues, biographies, documentaries, or newsletters.<br /><br />Produce genealogy/family history television programs on Web sites or specialty/niche television stations. Follow steps to start genealogy journalism and personal history television, Web-based businesses. Interview individuals tactfully with these sample questions. Record life experiences using oral historian’s techniques.<br /><br />Avoid pitfalls. Learn to write and/or collect and showcase personal history videos. Produce your own documentaries. Showcase other people’s genealogy tools.<br />or to browse book excerpt, click on the publisher's site at: <a href="http://www.iuniverse.com/bookstore/book_detail.asp?isbn=0-595-44947-6">http://www.iuniverse.com/bookstore/book_detail.asp?isbn=0-595-44947-6</a><br /> <br /><strong>Cheers to the Internal Locus</strong><br /><br />It has been a wonderful career inspiring people to do the best they can with what they have. I am now retired. Since June 1959 I have been a full-time independent (freelance) journalist, creativity enhancement motivator, book author, personal historian, videographer/documentarian, illustrator/book cover artist, observer, scriptwriter, playwright, and photographer, and after 1972, a part-time university-level educator in creative writing. My paperback books are available. Inspiring explores creative writing, music, and art as healing tools. Motivating involves creative listening.<br /><br />Yes, there are many alternative uses of a Master of Arts degree in English/creative writing emphasis (writing fiction, plays, and poetry) and minors in book illustration, psychology, and anthropology. I've made full use of nearly every course I took in college and/or graduate school. What college courses taught me in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s have remained ageless and non-dated, since I've survived all these years on my daily reading, writing, and 7th-grade course in touch typing. My work life consisted of listening.<br /><br />I am now a Full-Time Senior Volunteer and Loving It. My books and articles are reality checks. They reveal practical applications of details/facts, routes, and universals that work well and also inspire, motivate, and applaud your creativity. My purpose is not to dish out directives but to give information. My goal is not to tell you what to do, but how to think in practical and in universal ways with additional depth and breadth.<br /><br />When you face that first blank page alone, that list of alternatives and possibilities in your notebook may lead to new applications of familiar details. Listen for the concrete nuances, and then expand the checkable, updatable facts to the abstract universal with which everyone may identify.<br /><br />I am white haired, based at home with little mobility, proud to be old, optimistic, a non-driver, and am officially retired. Presently I am spending my time with my friendly dog, a Labrador retriever, volunteering, and painting mandalas in acrylics for my daily meditation on peace and joy. Most pleasant is the joy of a happy, upbeat work-place life from 1959 to 2007, and I am proud and wonderfully happy not to be working any longer.<br /><br />Most memorable is the pursuit of and the autodidactic study of the psychology of happiness. It is rewarding to give the utmost praise and thankfulness to those who have worked side by side with me totally dedicated to enhancing the creativity in anyone through healing music, beautiful artwork. And for the past 44 work years, and more than 80 books, encouraging, motivating, and inspiring others to do their best with creative writing. The focus emphasized writing about family history/family studies, genealogy, nutrition journalism, and DNA-driven genealogy reading resources.<br /><br />This is my time for play. And I'm spending my golden years being kind to people I meet and devoting my time to sharing happy moments with others. This is best done by helping where I'm needed through lending a hand and a smile. Thank you, Creative Force in all the universes for allowing me the joy of being 'spent' and at peace with the beauty and optimism in all creation, art, and music as a tool of healing. I thank all of you that have read or will read my books and articles or plays, scripts, and poems. Enjoy, and share the optimism in all universes as a healing tool.<br /><br />Anne Hart<br />____________________________________________________________<br /><br /><a href="http://www.iuniverse.com/bookstore/book_detail.asp?&amp;amp;isbn=0-595-44278-1">How to Open DNA-Driven Genealogy Reporting & Interpreting Businesses</a>: Applying Your Communications Skills to Popular Health or Ancestry Issues in the News<br />By <a href="http://www.iuniverse.com/bookstore/author.asp?author_id=72511&amp;amp;amp;penname=Anne++Hart">Anne Hart</a><br />Publisher's price: $23.95 Format: Paperback Size: 6 x 9Pages: 398ISBN: 0-595-44278-1Published: Apr-2007<br /><a style="COLOR: blue; TEXT-DECORATION: underline" href="http://www.iuniverse.com/bookstore/book_detail.asp?isbn=0-595-41316-1"></a><br /><br /><a style="COLOR: blue; TEXT-DECORATION: underline" href="http://www.iuniverse.com/bookstore/book_detail.asp?isbn=0-595-41316-1">102 Ways to Apply Career Training in Family History/Genealogy : How to Find a Job, Internship, or Create Your Own Business </a>by <a style="COLOR: blue; TEXT-DECORATION: underline" href="http://www.iuniverse.com/bookstore/author.asp?author_id=72511&amp;amp;amp;penname=Anne++Hart">Anne Hart </a><br />Publisher's Price: $16.95 Format: Paperback<br />How-To Books<br />How to Publish in Women's Studies, Men's Studies, Policy Analysis, & Family History Research<br />25 Ways to Organize Your Communications Training Business<br /><a class="thickbox" href="http://books.iuniverse.com/booksfolder/0595442323/0595442323.gif"></a><br /><br />How to Publish in Women’s Studies, Men’s Studies, Policy Analysis, & Family History Research: 25 Ways to Organize Your Communications Training Business<br />By <a href="http://www.iuniverse.com/bookstore/author.asp?author_id=72511&amp;amp;penname=Anne++Hart">Anne Hart</a><br />Publisher's price: $22.95 Format: Paperback Size: 6 x 9Pages: 393ISBN: 0-595-44232-3 Published: Apr-2007<br /><br />International orders:Call 00-1-402-323-7800<br />USA: Call 1-800-AUTHORS<br /><a href="http://www.iuniverse.com/">http://www.iuniverse.com</a><br />Here are practical writing, publishing, game design, and organizational skills, emphasizing businesses to start, and careers in Women’s Studies or Family History policy analysis.<br /><br /><strong>Book Description</strong><br /><br />Apply these strategies:<br /><br />How to Publish in Women’s Studies, Policy Analysis, & Family Issues.<br />How to Earn a Practical Living Applying Women’s Studies &amp; Family Research to Business Writing or Corporate Communications Training.<br />Organizing, Designing, & Publishing Life Stories, Issues in the News, Current Events, and History Videos, Board/Computer Games, Scripts, Plays, and Books.<br /><br />How do you start your own Women’s Studies policy analysis writing and communications business? How do you earn income using practical applications of Publishing/Producing, Women’s Studies, Current Events, or Family History Issues Research and Writing in the corporate world? How do you train executives to better organize writing and interpersonal communications skills? What specific projects would you use to organize communications, publish your research, or train others?<br /><br />Use these vital platforms of social history to start 25 business and creative writing or publishing enterprises. Apply practical communications. Organize and improve communication and publishing projects in the corporate world or academia.<br /><br />Open 25 different types of writing, publishing, or production businesses. Train executives and entrepreneurs in how women’s and men’s studies, family history, and current issues in the news relate to business writing, creative concepts, producing multimedia, and training others in interpersonal communications or policy analysis.<br /><br /><a href="http://books.iuniverse.com/viewbooks.asp?isbn=0595442323">Browse Before You Buy</a><br /><br />Novels by Anne Hart<br /><br />Historical Time-Travel Novel set in 150 BCE Ancient Rome<br /><br /><strong>Proper Parenting in Ancient Rome: A Time-Travel Novel of Love as Growth of Consciousness & Peace in the Home</strong><br />By <a href="http://www.iuniverse.com/bookstore/author.asp?author_id=72511&amp;amp;penname=Anne++Hart">Anne Hart</a><br />Publisher's price: $12.95 Format: Paperback Size: 6 x 9Pages: 162ISBN: 0-595-42977-7 Published: Feb-2007<br /><br />International orders:Call 00-1-402-323-7800<br />USA: Call 1-800-AUTHORS<br /><a href="http://www.iuniverse.com">http://www.iuniverse.com</a><br /><br />This ancient Roman family time travels to study the human condition and world peace. They recommend finding inner peace in art galleries in order to find peace in the home.<br /><br /><strong>Book Description</strong><br /><br />It is 150 BCE. Twenty-year old Quintus Cincinnatus Aemilianus arrives at his family estate in the Etruscan-farmed countryside an hour’s ride from Rome to face adult responsibilities. He’s a world traveler, senator-in-training, and learned in architecture. But he has only one mission in life: to maintain peace in the home. He believes family harmony is a microcosm of all that exists.<br /><br />He learns his father, a man with Etruscan enemies, is missing. After childhood years spent learning Greek, Latin, and Aramaic from diverse sages in Alexandria, seeking proper, holistic parenting is no problem. He owns the Antikythera device, a mechanism of complicated gears physically representing the Callippic and Saros astronomical cycles. It’s not only gears he wants to mesh. It’s the human condition. And he looks for patterns in nature.<br /><br />Quintus believes in proper holistic parenting as an adventure within a timeless search for the perfect nurturing mother. His goal and life purpose are achieved through practical deeds. He is an ancient builder of dreams so far ahead of his century, that he finds time travel a gift of destiny. For Quintus, the explorer and observer of comparative thought, the best way to study the human condition is through art. He believes that peace in the home feeds the growth of consciousness.<br /><br /><a href="http://books.iuniverse.com/viewbooks.asp?isbn=0595429777">Browse Before You Buy</a><br /><br />Browse this novel at publisher's site at: <a href="http://www.iuniverse.com/bookstore/book_detail.asp?isbn=0595429777">http://www.iuniverse.com/bookstore/book_detail.asp?isbn=0595429777</a><br /><br /><a class="thickbox" href="http://books.iuniverse.com/booksfolder/0595442323/0595442323.gif"></a> <br /><br />USA: Call 1-800-AUTHORS<br /><a href="http://www.iuniverse.com/">http://www.iuniverse.com</a><br /><br />Also see article and excerpt links.<br />USA - Call 1-800-AUTHORS or to browse book, click on the publisher's Web site: <a href="http://www.iuniverse.com/bookstore/book_detail.asp?isbn=0-595-44232-3">http://www.iuniverse.com/bookstore/book_detail.asp?isbn=0-595-44232-3</a><br /><br /><br />Published in paperback on April 16, 2007 by ASJA Press, an imprint of iUniverse, Inc. (<a href="http://www.iuniverse.com/">http://www.iuniverse.com</a>).<br />DNA-Driven Genealogy Books<br /><a class="thickbox" href="http://books.iuniverse.com/booksfolder/0595442781/0595442781.gif"></a><br /><a class="thickbox" href="http://books.iuniverse.com/booksfolder/0595442781/0595442781.gif">View Larger</a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.iuniverse.com/bookstore/book_detail.asp?&amp;isbn=0-595-44278-1">How to Open DNA-Driven Genealogy Reporting & Interpreting Businesses</a>: Applying Your Communications Skills to Popular Health or Ancestry Issues in the News<br />By <a href="http://www.iuniverse.com/bookstore/author.asp?author_id=72511&amp;amp;penname=Anne++Hart">Anne Hart</a><br />Publisher's price: $23.95 Format: Paperback Size: 6 x 9Pages: 398ISBN: 0-595-44278-1Published: Apr-2007<br /><br />ASJA Press, 1-800-AUTHORS<br />International orders:Call 00-1-402-323-7800<br /><br />Open your online DNA-driven genealogy reporting service business. The laboratory you contract with does testing and sends you reports that you interpret for your clients.<br />Book Description<br /><br /> Here's how to open your own online DNA-driven genealogy reporting/interpreting service business. You wouldn't do the actual DNA testing. The laboratory you contract with does the testing and sends you reports that you interpret for your clients.<br /><br /> As a DNA-driven genealogist, you would prepare illustrated and text-driven reports, colorful CDs, brochures, press kits, covers, Web sites, and guides to interpreting the DNA-for-ancestry-based information. You would interpret tests for deep ancestry to your clients.<br /> What verbal skills and any other preparation would you need to empower consumers with knowledge from reports you receive from your partnering DNA-testing laboratory? Would you also interpret reports from genetics counselors testing for predisposition to diseases? Or emphasize only deep ancestry?<br /><br /> Would you need a self-taught science background, a genealogy hobby, or only marketing and communications experience? Who does the actual interpreting? How would you contract with DNA laboratories to send reports and other information related to ancestry?<br /> You may be a genealogist, a personal historian, or a life story videographer thinking of partnering with a DNA-testing laboratory. Your business would be to make complex information easy to understand and interpret in plain language DNA reports from scientists to genealogy clients and surname groups. The DNA tests could be for ancestry and/or nutritional genomics issues.<br /><br /><a href="http://books.iuniverse.com/viewbooks.asp?isbn=0595442781">Browse Before You Buy</a><br /><a href="http://www.iuniverse.com/bookstore/book_detail.asp?&amp;isbn=0-595-44278-1">http://www.iuniverse.com/bookstore/book_detail.asp?&isbn=0-595-44278-1</a><br />___________________________________________________<br /><br /><br /><strong>Publishers:</strong><br /><br />1. ASJA Press, an imprint of iUniverse, Inc. at <a href="http://www.iuniverse.com/">http://www.iuniverse.com</a> or in the USA call: 1-800 AUTHORS<br /><br />Career Press has a Web site at <a href="http://www.careerpress.com/">http://www.careerpress.com/</a><br /><br />Also view Anne Hart's Web site of reviews of software, books, and documentary videos by clicking on the reviews link at <a href="http://annehart.tripod.com">http://annehart.tripod.com</a>.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.submitexpress.com/"></a><a href="http://www.submitexpress.com/">Search Engine Optimization and SEO Tools</a><br /><a href="" target="_blank"></a><br /><a href="http://www.free-counter-plus.com/" target="_blank"></a><a href="http://www.free-counter-plus.com/counter/stats/stats.asp?id=555504409" target="_blank"></a><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9180469173126249540-6561480812701775646?l=how-to-books.blogspot.com'/></div>writeathonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9180469173126249540.post-63428165413611831122007-05-05T12:46:00.001-07:002007-05-05T13:09:49.402-07:00<strong>Proper Parenting in Ancient Rome: A Time-Travel Novel of Love as Growth of Consciousness & Peace in the Home <br />By Anne Hart </strong><br /><br />Pubisher's price: $12.95 <br />Format: Paperback <br />Size: 6 x 9<br />Pages: 162<br />ISBN: 0-595-42977-7<br />Published: Feb-2007 <br /><br />International orders:<br />Call 00-1-402-323-7800 or USA, Call 1-800 AUTHORS. Or click on: http://www.iuniverse.com/bookstore/book_detail.asp?isbn=0-595-42977-7 <br />This ancient Roman family time travels to study the human condition and world peace. They recommend finding inner peace in art galleries in order to find peace in the home. <br /><br /><strong>Book Description <br /><br />Just Published...<br />Proper Parenting in Ancient Rome </strong><br /><strong><em><br />A Time-Travel Novel of Love as Growth of Consciousness & Peace in the Home <br />Anne Hart<br />ISBN: 0-595-42977-7 </em></strong><br /><br />Available from Ingram Book Group, Baker & Taylor, and from most online booksellers or order from publisher, an ASJA Press imprint of iUniverse, Inc. To order call 1-800-AUTHORS.<br /><br />“The deeper question to answer first is what loves us so much that life in time will grow into consciousness under the most diverse conditions and finally control all of nature while we move outside of time?” Quintus asks about the meaning and purpose of life as he unfolds his search and begins his journey.<br /><br />It is 150 years before the Common Era. Alexandria is the greatest center of Hellenistic and Hebrew culture. The Dead Sea Scrolls are beginning to be written. The ‘modern’ Hebrew alphabet, derived from Aramaic cursive letters is coming into use, and for a wealthy, young Roman aristocrat, traveler, and historian, Quintus Cincinnatus Aemilianus, returning home means adult responsibilities begin. Quintus has one mission in life: to maintain peace in the home. He believes family harmony is a microcosm of all that exists. Quintus is out to prove it by traveling in time throughout his known world.<br /><br />The young man arrives at his family estate in the Etruscan-farmed countryside an hour’s ride from Rome. He learns his father, a man with Etruscan enemies, is missing.<br />After a childhood spent learning Greek, Latin, and Aramaic from diverse sages in Alexandria, seeking proper, holistic parenting is no problem. He owns the Antikythera device, a mechanism of complicated gears physically representing the Callippic and Saros astronomical cycles. It’s not only gears he wants to mesh. It’s the human condition.<br /><br />Quintus, the architect-engineer also is a Roman senator-in-training who believes (as it has been said) in “deeds, not creeds.” He is a builder of dreams. He is so far ahead of his century, that he finds time travel a gift of destiny. For Quintus, the explorer and observer of comparative thought, the only way to study the human condition is to gawk at his works of art and reflect (or pray). So begins proper (holistic) parenting in ancient Rome. See any similarity in this proper holistic parenting adventure to a timeless search for the perfect nurturing mother? Look at his deeds. Art shows us the human condition. And peace in the home feeds the growth of consciousness. <br /><br />Excerpt from Chapter One: <strong>Brief Excerpt: You can browse the first chapter at the publisher's Web site.</strong><br /><br /><strong><em>http://www.iuniverse.com/bookstore/book_detail.asp?isbn=0-595-42977-7 <br />Proper Parenting in Ancient Rome<br />A Time-Travel Novel of Love as Growth of Consciousness & Peace in the Home <br /><br />Chapter 1</em></strong><br /><br />“The deeper question to answer first is what loves us so much that life in time will grow into consciousness under the most diverse conditions and finally control all of nature while we move outside of time?” Quintus asks about the meaning and purpose of life as he unfolds his search and begins his journey."<br /><br />It is 150 years before the Common Era. Alexandria is the greatest center of Hellenistic and Hebrew culture. The Dead Sea Scrolls are beginning to be written. The ‘modern’ Hebrew alphabet, derived from Aramaic cursive letters is coming into use, and for a wealthy, young Roman aristocrat, traveler, and historian, Quintus Cincinnatus Aemilianus, returning home means adult responsibilities begin. Quintus has one mission in life: to maintain peace in the home. He believes family harmony is a microcosm of all that exists. Quintus is out to prove it by traveling in time throughout his known world.<br /><br />The young man arrives at his family estate in the Etruscan-farmed countryside an hour’s ride from Rome. He learns his father, a man with Etruscan enemies, is missing. After a childhood spent learning Greek, Latin, and Aramaic from diverse sages in Alexandria, seeking proper, holistic parenting is no problem. He owns the Antikythera device, a mechanism of complicated gears physically representing the Callippic and Saros astronomical cycles. It’s not only gears he wants to mesh. It’s the human condition.<br /><br />Quintus, the architect-engineer also is a Roman senator-in-training who believes (as it has been said) in “deeds, not creeds.” He is a builder of dreams. He is so far ahead of his century, that he finds time travel a gift of destiny. For Quintus, the explorer and observer of comparative thought, the only way to study the human condition is to gawk at his collected works of art and reflect (or pray). So begins proper (holistic) parenting in ancient Rome. See any similarity in this proper holistic parenting adventure to a timeless search for the perfect nurturing mother?<br /><br /><strong>Octavia’s Fortune</strong><br /><br />Often, as a proper Roman boy of ten years I, Quintus Cincinnatus Aemilianus spent nights on special feast days at the house of Salonius, most senior scribe to Cato. At those times my five-year-old playmate, Octavia and I lied awake, well protected, I thought, close to Octavia and to her rotund mother, Cornelia. As chaperoned children, we slept in the roped, rutted wool and feathered torus next to Cornelia.<br /><br /> I used my own family members as models by memorizing the fruits of our family deeds, not creeds. I jostled the words to Cornelia without understanding their impact. “Our Roman family time travels only to study and understand the human condition for inner peace. And you can only learn about the human condition by studying what is in the art galleries of all peoples. Our goal is peace in the home. You have to practice it in every room if you ever want to grow world peace.”<br />“You grow peace, like a vine or a tree?” Cornelia looked up in surprise, grinning crookedly, but not smiling with her eyes.<br /><br />“That’s right. You pray yourself into peace in an art gallery, not in a pantheon. Otherwise you’re talking to yourself. Don’t you know that the purpose of life is to understand the human condition?” <br /><br />“You certainly can’t do anything about it.” Cornelia huffed with impatience. You’re only a ten-year old boy…a very wealthy and smart boy. Maybe you can fix some of the broken furniture around this house. What’s more of a human condition than that torus I sleep on arriving back from repair full of vermin?<br /><br />“My father told me that the purpose of life is to take care of one another.”<br />“So that’s how you repair what’s broken,” Cornelia laughed, admonishing me. “That’s a lot of strange information from a ten-year old Roman boy. Learning architecture might not be a useless plan after all.”<br /><br />“My tutor from Alexandria told me the purpose of life is to repair.”<br />“Repair the stench of life with what healing unguent or spice your tutor brought you from Alexandria? What’s in that sack?” <br /><br />“Watch how he stretches his body in a dance.” The Mau kitten I pulled from a perforated goatskin pack leaped from my hands, scattering across the mosaic floor. “Octavia will find that he is a good listener.”<br /><br />I watched the slaves overstuff Cornelia’s torus with swans down. They placed it upon the lectus so it would be high enough from the flagstones to be free from vermin and covered it with goat hide. <br /><br />Cornelia had coarse, yellowed linens that scratched my arms and made me itch, and her bleached wool coverings reeked of the urine used to bleach it. The stench of sweat, roses, and myrrh still couldn’t mask the bleaching with stale urine, no matter how many times the slaves beat the fabric underwater. <br />Even when dried in the sun, the damp coverings smelled rancid. Fresh air couldn’t erase what secrets those covers witnessed. <br /><br />I watched in Salonius’s villa as the carpenters made the first woodcut on the sopha and applied its moldings to match the room. Above, the ceiling murals of clouds on faded blue-green skies lulled me to sleep. <br /><br />I had my tenth birthday the day Octavia had her fifth, and we celebrated so that I was invited to sleep in the house of Salonius, chaperoned by Cornelia so that little Octavia, skinny me, and rotund Cornelia all shared and slept upon the same, soft torus on this enormous lectus full of wormholes. Cornelia even allowed Octavia to hold the kitten in the folds of her tunic.<br /><br />Salonius, in the next bedroom slept with his 20-year old son in two separate lectus and torus far apart at opposite ends of the room. In the darkest hours of the early morning pouring rain chilled the room yet soothed the scraping of the crickets like nails on dry pumice stone and the erudite screams of the night.We finally arrived at the entrance to the Subura, called the primae fauces near the Praefectura Urbana. Everything anyone can buy from a shop could be found here. My eyes feasted on the sweets from the shops, but I had no coins with me. <br /><br />I knew at any time my father left me a bag of coins I could have my bodyguards arrange for a litter and slaves to do the shopping for me. I knew Cato was a miser, as my father always joked, but I never realized that his wife had to stoop to stealing to get a thrill or a variety of raisin cake, or a ream of fabric to sew Octavia her basic clothing.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9180469173126249540-6342816541361183112?l=how-to-books.blogspot.com'/></div>writeathonnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9180469173126249540.post-22538550928303853962007-05-05T11:57:00.000-07:002008-07-21T17:00:44.904-07:00<strong>More Books</strong><br /> <br /><strong><em><em><strong>Why We Never Give Up Our Need for a Perfect Mother: Trapped at Home by Anxiety & Panic? by Anne Hart </strong></em></em></strong><br />Published March 2007<br />Publisher's Price: $16.95<br />Format: Paperback<br />USA orders: Call 1-800-AUTHORS. International orders: Call 00-1-402-323-7800<br />Web site: http://www.iuniverse.com/bookstore/book_detail.asp?isbn=0-595-43402-9<br /> <br /><strong>Book Excerpt Article </strong><br /><br />The 5-HTT Gene: Research at the Stoneybrook University in New York revealed that perhaps if you inherit a short version of the gene called 5-HTT, you’re more likely to be predisposed to experiencing anxiety and fear or to become depressed.<br />Here’s how I burned out agoraphobia and panic disorder by stretching, walking in place, and nutritional changes. Research your individual issues from my detailed experience.<br /><br /><strong>Book Description</strong><br /><br />The world is divided between calm people with a long 5-HTT gene and anxious individuals with a short 5-HTT gene. People with a short 5-HTT gene live with constant electrical activity in their brain’s fear center. Here’s one life story chronicling the genetic basis of agoraphobia and panic disorder, one woman’s war against the fear of going outside. You may be predisposed to either anxiety or depression if you have a short 5-HTT gene.<br /><br />Look up the article reporting a study that links depression to an overactive fear center in the brain titled, “Bound for Gloom and Doom,” Proceedings of the National Academy or Sciences, October 11, 2006. You can find this online at ScienceNOW Daily News. Online, check out ScienceNOW’s search engine at: http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/search?searchtype=article&andorexacttitle=or&amp;fulltext=bound+for+gloom+and+doom<br /><br />Your genes react to different foods, vitamins, and treatments. If you’re concerned about hormonal imbalances and genetic predisposition, such as a short 5-HTT gene, how your body metabolizes nutrients or what defects are in your autonomic nervous system, then discover genetic causes of vitamin over stimulation or under absorption. Here’s how I burned out agoraphobia and panic disorder with mild exercise such as walking in place and nutritional changes. Research your individual issues from my detailed experience.<br /><br /><strong>Browse book at publisher's Web site: http://www.iuniverse.com/bookstore/book_detail.asp?isbn=0-595-43402-9 </strong><br /><br />________________________________________________________________<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/9180469173126249540-2253855092830385396?l=how-to-books.blogspot.com'/></div>writeathonnoreply@blogger.com