Melva Gifford

Here is more great writing advice from Life, the Universe, and Everything. The theme of the presentation is about Comedy and horror.

• Better to be fast then dead
• An author read another work that is wonderful gets discouraged. Can’t do it. How do you know you can’t? Can you read into the future?
• Labeling: I am not able to come up with interesting plots. You think it will never change.
• You have an unrealistic expectation of what makes a great writer.
• All or nothing: I have to write like so and so, I’ll be successful. They did a good job. What did they do that worked? Examine what they did and I can learn how to do that.
• This is a fact of life, someone will always write better than you do.
• How long have you been writing?
• How many books has the other person written compared to you?
• When you compare yourself to other people it is apples to oranges. Someone background can contribute to their success.
• A new romance book had a goal to sell a romance. She wrote 200 romances. It took her over a yr. she is now successful
• We often learn from seeing what other people work well.
• I’m stuck, can’t get an idea. This story is stupid. Maybe I don’t have what it takes. I suck. You are doing an over generalization. Being stuck is normal. It’s a signal that I’m out of ideas. That it’s boring or the plot does not wright true. Think why the story isn’t working. Awesome that I caught this here rather than later.
• Getting stuck happens to everyone.
• If you lose passing for the story, the book may not be interesting. Are you doing something that is not believable? When we know what the problem is we can fix it.
• It’s not realistic to expect a superior product when you start. Pixar has to fix their problems.
• Farmers love crap> spread it around and things grow. Write down crape idea and you can get good ideas.
• It always easier to improve something then a nothing.
• It is not reasonable to expect a finished product of the beginning of the process. It is reasonable to expect a mess that gets better.
• Those who finished later have more success than I do. Should statements. I should be better. A mental filter: where you disregard everything that is positive about what you’ve accomplished. Mental filter can motivate us to hate democrat or hate republican. We see we made a little mistake and we make it bigger.
• All or nothing thinking. We don’t acknowledge that were entertaining readers.
• Much of commercial success is beyond my control. Just see how far you have come.
• Not everyone gets the same opportunity.
• Brandon Sanderson: had 5 books written in advance. Everyone has different opportunities so that when a change comes you can run with it.
• Everyone learns and grows at a different rate. Everyone has a different label.
• Big commercial success is very rare. I can improve those small odds by learning the craft. People who start a new business don’t always succeed either. If I take a long time, that’s ok. You may think it’s not my time.
• Michael Collins has a good article on his website: you need to define what success is for you. Don’t define success by money or commercial suggest.
• People go into business to make a customer happy. I don’t have control of my production. I don’t have control over everything.
• Got a bad review or didn’t like your story. Distortions: should statements. Should everyone in the world like my book? Mental filter: have you written things that pleased others. All or nothing. Realistic: I write a lot of good books. That reviewer may not be your audience.
• No matter who the writer his or her ideal intended audiences is only a small fraction of the living readers.
• Write the books you love and find the audience that they like reading your kind of stuff.
• Maybe all my successes were accidents. Fortune telling. Do all that is required to make your story great.  It’s just one response. Every author has a book that doesn’t work.
• Book by David d Burens: feeling good.
• Find out what stories do for the reader?
• Books peak
• Book: running lean.

Do you have something to add? If you do, please respond in the comment section of this blog. Thanks.

Here is more great writing advice from Life, the Universe, and Everything. The theme of the presentation is about book covers images. It’s a continuation of the book cover panel. Any misinformation is the fault of the note taker.

• Does the image influence the mood of the book?
• Does it alter the rules of layout?
• Is there room or an obvious place for text?
• A book cover is used to create an emotion.
• Does it set a mood or expectation?
• We look in a cover in thirds. Create grid lines on a book to see what is shows where. 9 grids in a cover.
• You only put author if they are a big name. New people.
• Google the rule of thirds.
• American view left to right.
• You need to have figures in the book facing the way that the book opens. The image wants to invite people to open the book
• Your image needs to provide room for text
• Contrasts are good.
• Faces will always draw you in.
• Attractive bias: is they are pretty, people buy it.
• Cut off head or eyes covers trying to make the book universally relatable.
• The use of colors: can google it
• Book in a series should look the same.
• Need to remember your book as a thumbnail.
• Interview cover artist’s knowledge of 3, motions etc.

Do you have something to add? If you do, please respond in the comment section of this blog. Thanks.